I stayed up all night waiting for an early morning taxi to take me to the airport. I was half asleep, wearing the same jeans and t-shirt I had been wearing since the beginning of the tour. I smelled awful. It was a combination of sweat that dried slowly after every show, leaving white rings on the front of my shirt and around my shoes, and the stale smell of beer and cigarette smoke. I tried to cover it up with aftershave and deodorant, but every time I moved a new pocket of powerful stink rose from some part of me.
After days of not feeling the high I so needed after the 20 minute nightly set of blistering, feedback-drenched, controlled chaos, I stopped looking for it. I played through each set with other things on my mind. We were playing bars, supporting a bigger name band, that would hold the crowds who came out eagerly in support of something as mysterious as a band from Japan that usually got some favorable article written about them in the local entertainment weekly newspapers.
The show was everything I hoped it would be. We set up our equipment extremely close to the front of the 2 foot high stage. It was our way of creating a small space to stand, so the giant venues felt confined, in a good way. When we switched on our amps, the people began to move away from the bar and from smoking outside onto the linoleum-floored space in front. I could feel a thick tension building between the crowd. The local kids were being pushed around by thuggish frat boys and the kids were pushing back. As we played the first 10 seconds of the first song, a glass was smashed to the floor and bouncers swarmed, grabbing a bloodied friend by the throat and pulling him away. His screams and struggles incited more of the same from others. Without pause we continued playing as the bouncers tried to mop up the mess just in front of the stage. The crowd grew frighteningly aggressive and jumped on the bouncers to get a better look at us. The bouncers fought back with the graceful ease of prize fighting giants. The kick drum tipped over and the drummer stopped playing, which meant the rest of the band stopped too. It happens. The crowd continued moving in violent protest. The drum was set back up and the song continued into another. I looked back at the drummer. His face was twisted in pain and anger. The drums were taking a beating like I hadn’t seen in a while. The stress and frustrations of eating bland vegan dinners and sleeping on hard floors in cat-piss infested apartments had come to a full eruption in the young man. His drums would pay dearly for every upturned nose at gas stations, every goddamn piece of equipment that had to be loaded and unloaded from the cramped, borrowed van. A few more minutes into the set and the kickdrum tumbled forward again. Instead of fixing it, he drummer bagan throwing the rest of the drum set into the crowd. Both the guitarist and I looked at each other and moved toward our respective amps, providing this freak out with an appropriate dose of eardrum-splitting feedback. The show was over in less than 7 minutes and it had the energy of a drunken fist fight.
At the airport I was seriously asked by a bag checker if the contents of my bass case was a firearm. A rifle in the airport. I looked like a maniac. The deep bags under my eyes and messy hair. The denim jacket and stretched-out shirt. I smiled at the checker and my face felt like it would crack open. When it didn’t, I said “no gun, just a guitar.”
