This is pop?

I arrived in Northampton for our Elevens Popfest show an hour early and promptly spent the next half hour looking for parking. 30 minutes of exhaust added to the atmosphere. When Massachusetts feels like North Carolina in 50 years, blame me.

Or James Taylor, the Paradise City Arts Festival, or the Fall leaves. I blame them all for filling up my favorite secret parking spots with New York plates. I finally found a spot a good three blocks away and was happy there was a backline provided at the club. A backline means amps and drums are provided. This is usually a good thing. Usually.

Henning, Tony and Paul were at the club and I was happy to see there was an early crowd, and that Bruce was doing sound. It was strange to look around and only recognize one person. That added to the excitement, as if we were playing an out-of-town show in our own town. The first band went on. I liked the bass player's sweater and bass combination. Then we hopped up on stage and tried to set up as quickly as possible. We were told ten minutes tops for set-up, and being the courteous band that we are, I think we made it under 9.

Unfortunately, I spent 8.7 minutes trying to get my amp to work, and the other .3 fuming that it didn't. Or maybe it was my cranky bass, a cord, the tuner. Something was giving me a headache, but I decided to not worry about it. I figured the sound would be crap anyway, so maybe we would just represent the punk/pop side of the popfest that night. If the band were big rock stars and our record company could have covered us I would have smashed my bass into the amp at the end of the set, but Rub Wrongways has been hitting some tough times lately, what with Henning's solo record tanking and all.

So, I tried to bring some energy to the show and did my best to cover everyone else's vocal harmonies with my feeble warble. I'm not sure if we made any fans that night, but I enjoyed it. My three block walk was equally enjoyable, and I dissapeared into the warm October night, trying not to run over any New York James Taylor fans.