Miasmatic Review

Tequilla good?

Ktreva and I went out to dinner with some friends of ours Saturday night. Afterwards we headed to a local bar, Hard Times, to see a band play. We work with the lead singer and thought it would be nice to go check out the band. There were other friends of ours that were supposed to meet us there as well.

When I was younger I used to frequent Hard Times a lot, it was one of the few bars that actually played metal in Rockford. Until Saturday, I had not stepped foot in there for 8 years. That place has changed a lot over the last 8 years. It is still a metal bar, but the lay out of the place is completely different. Plus it wasn’t as busy at it used to be, all night it never got crowded.

At this point, I would love to give you a review of the bands, but to be fair I cannot. It has nothing to do with how much I had been drinking; it has everything to do with the craptacular company the bar brought in to run the sound. The bands were supposed to start playing at 9:00 PM; however, they couldn’t get the sound system to work properly until 10:45 PM. Even after the sound was working, they had the volumes on the channels messed up. The Bass guitar and drums completely drowned out the lead guitar, rhythm guitar, vocals and in one bad the keyboard. (BTW, just a hint to people that plays in metal/rock bands. KEYBOARDS DO NOT BELONG IN METAL/ROCK!)

Then they had the sound cranked so loud that you couldn’t even yell at the person next to you to convey your displeasure at the ineptitude of the sound crew. Imagine if you will, people in this small bar trying to listen to a band, consisting only of drums and a bass guitar being played deafeningly loud. I know the saying, “If it’s too loud, you’re too old”. Nah, when it’s so loud you are getting feedback echo, turn down the volume! When someone said something to the sound crew regarding the issues, they were promptly blown off with a, “We are being paid to do this, we know what we are doing!”

Before the bands started playing, I shot some pool with one of the guys, “C”. While growing up, I always had a pool table in our house, so you would think I’d be decent at it. Well I’m not! I don’t really like shooting pool, so I don’t play very often. “C” used to be in a pool league. I still won 4 out of 6 games. Three of those wins had nothing to do with skill, he scratched three times on the eight ball. In C’s defense, it wasn’t exactly him either. The table was warped and it leaned towards one of the corners. If you gently hit one of the balls, you could see the ball’s path curve with the table. Once we figured that out, we did make some beautiful shots that neither one of us normally would be able to make.

We all had a really good time, excluding the crappy sound and including me drunkenly rubbing my nipples and screaming, “Davey! We love you!” to make fun of some of the girls dancing at the foot of the stage. Any night that I end up buying myself Prairie Fire shots (Half Tequila and Half Tabasco) is a good night. The pickling of my brain made the Packers loss to the Vikings on Sunday a lot less painful.