Pretzel Logic Music

Here’s another fresh episode of “tales from the bandstand” feat: the owner of the wedding barn I played yesterday. Get ready it’s a rollercoaster

We show up for soundcheck and he comes to greet us. Lovely man, bit of a character I though, likes a bit of a banter and having a laugh.
Tall, skinny, wrinkly face, deep sunken eyes that can only belong to someone who is wearing underwear made of human skin that he himself has sourced.

The voice a low rasp, he walks me through the ins and outs of what’s gonna happen during the day. Very polite and somewhat charming, he interjects once in a while and tells me of the pranks he usually pulls on the bassist / drummer / whoever.

The groom arrives and we are discussing the timetable for the day. I make a mistake when I say the start time of the first set and he grabs Mike Orvis’s hand and jokingly slaps me across the face with it. This, dear readers, is like three minutes after I first met him. Off to a great start then.

The bride and groom make their entrance and he proceeds to grab a long thin trumpet – like instrument to play an entrance fanfare for the couple.
Now. Some of you might be old enough to know the Smurfs. Remember the one with the trumpet? Yes, he sounded exactly like that.
To anyone who has never seen the smurfs, just imagine you have a Labrador, you make it run for like two hours and then stick a trumpet in its mouth. That would be a good approximation of the sound that came out of it.

And I thought: “HAHAH that’s so funny, he’s pretending to play a trumpet as a gag, so sweet”. Then he turns around and talks to us with the absolute confidence of someone who plays Bach’s Brandenburg concerto every day before breakfast. And we slowly realise: that was not a gag, at least not in his head. No one had the heart, or the guts probably, to comment.

He then very professionally helped us to linkup the stage gear with the PA system and looked after the sound so we were ready to go.

The crowd was extremely rowdy, we had two drunk women fall over the stage monitors before the first chorus of the first song and at some point we had an authentic bona fide mosh pit. Good times.

Shortly after that, someone breaks a couple glasses in the middle of the dance floor. At that point I am singing and playing so I’m not paying much attention because yes ladies and gentlemen, it’s that kind of night. Suddenly the drums stop. I look at Mike the drummer and he has an expression on his face that’s halfway between terrified and puzzled.

Our unhinged manager is standing in the middle of the dance floor gesticulating and stops the band with a very resolute “STOP THE FOOKING MUSIC”.

At that point the silence falls on the hall. Everyone is rendered speechless as he nonchalantly grabs a big thing that looks like a lawnmower and proceeds to clean the floor in the awkward stillness of the room.

This one guy who’s drunk as your uncle at a BBQ thinks he’s funny and jumps on the thing and rides it like a go kart. He’s a big fella, his forearm as big as my head.
Well. His joy lasts for like three seconds, after which venue manager has him by his throat and lifts him off the thing then calmly finishes cleaning the floor. We all stood in amazed silence.
I catch the bloke who has been mildly choked and then removed flipping the bird at the manager but like in a very scared, secretive way, like a schoolboy behind the back of the principal.
The expression on Simon Hitchenson, the guitarist is priceless, I wish I had a camera in my eyes

I ask if we can keep playing and at his signal we move on with the set.
The rest of the night was great, everyone danced and had a fab time, and it’s such a good rush of energy to play to a full, appreciative dancefloor.

At the end of it all, while I’m loading the car I say goodnight and thanks to the barmaids and he shouts at them because “he has to wake up at 5 tomorrow”.

Today I was reminiscing with Mike about him and he said “If I woke up this morning and found out he burned the barn to the ground yesterday night, I wouldn’t be surprised at all”