Show Journal 2000-06-30
This was the last of our three shows with the Kansas City Stars and The Secretions and probably the worst. Ashland is 300 miles away and 4th of July weekend traffic shoots the drive time up to almost 7 hours. Daddy O’s is a cool club and the owners rock so the long drive wasn’t really a problem for us. Besides, the drive was a good opportunity to watch Justin cringe in pain as we played the first Danzig album over and over again. On to the show … the Secretions had a lot of people around to watch them, probably 30 or so, which is pretty decent for Ashland. I would have been happy with that turnout but after the Kansas City Stars got done there was less than 10 people in the whole place. After another slow equipment breakdown (shouldn’t they move their own drums?) we ended up starting at 1:15 in the morning. By this point there was 3 people watching us play. That is not a typo … 3 people. Every now and again someone new would wander in for a song and then leave but 3 was in fact the magic number. Ironically, we actually played one of our best shows yet. If we had played like that anywhere else people would have loved it. Don’t get me wrong the 3 people seemed to dig it, but come on … 3 people? By the way, we only got paid 10 dollars tonight. That’s pretty weak considering the distance, but at least Daddy O’s pays which is more than I can say for the bend you over and ream you type dealings of the Paris Theater. Anyhow, we ended up driving all the way back to p-town that night. This all sounds like a pretty miserable evening but we actually had a pretty fun time with the whole trip. Complaining really just doesn’t get you anywhere, especially when you are in close quarters with 3 other people for hours on end, so we just laughed it all off. However, since this is an appropriate forum for complaining check this out … between our 3 shows this week we made 10 dollars. We sold nothing, we spent about 12 hours in the van and we spent just under 10 hours sitting in the various clubs and watching other bands play. The worst statistic is that between the 3 shows we played to an average of 8 people per show … a new low for 800 Octane. You could argue we are still paying our dues but it seems we’ve been paying our dues for several years now and I would like it to end.
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