South of the Border (...or is it the East Side?)

Friday, 15 July 2005
BenWahBob doesn’t usually venture too far from the St. Charles, MO area for gigs, as most of the members are from that general area. We occasionally do pick up some gigs in Illinois. This weekend we had the “pleasure” of playing at Club Richards in Alton, IL. It was the first time in there for this band. I have played there several times before in other bands, and it was always a great stage on which to play. Unfortunately, I have also had several gigs cancelled there in just about every band. The owner is somewhat fickle, to say the least. Since the last time I was there, he had apparently lost the house PA and lights to better paying places. No surprise there. This was what made it worth playing there, though. If nothing else, you could get some really good live photos while you were there.

This club does not have a reliable regular crowd. If you don’t bring in your own friends and fans, you play to empty seats – plain and simple. Being basically from another state, this was the case for BWB. We kept hearing from people that a crowd would probably come in late in the night. It didn’t happen. Having Jagertyme playing just across town didn’t help us either. We did see some familiar faces, though. The Marshall girls – Julie and her sister Jeanette – showed up late in the night. A couple of Dale’s friends drove over from Missouri. And, I got yet another Those1Guys sighting.

Bobby had his old Alibi singer Eddie Christ (the jokes were hard to suppress, believe me) running sound for us with Bobby’s system. We had used a partial set-up of this system at a country club gig a few weeks ago, but this was the first time I got to hear the full system in action. It was sweet…a very nice and easy-to-set-up PA system. I should aspire to such a system myself. Eddie did a great job and everyone agreed we sounded good.

On a different note… as long as I’ve been playing in the Alton area, there has been “The Fajita Guy” trolling around from bar to bar at the end of the night cooking fajitas and burritos out of the back of his truck. They are awesome. Apparently he is now pretty much camping out in Richards’ parking lot on the weekends, and cooking inside during the week. After all of these years of eating his food, I finally had the opportunity to talk with the man. What a great guy. His name is Jesus Ayala, he is from Mexico, and he is one of the best short-order Mexican food cooks I have ever encountered. He makes his own habanero sauce, and it will make you sweat with a quickness. His food made the whole weekend worth any accompanying aggravations.

Saturday, 16 July 2005
Part two of the Club Richards gig was Saturday night. As I arrived, Jesus was already in the parking lot serving up the chow. Had I known that he would be there this early in the evening, I wouldn’t have stopped at Sonic for dinner. However, I can’t complain about their cherry limeade.

Once on stage, we put the sets through the usual paces. One of the songs that Dale usually has the lyrics available for turned into a comedy routine. He just flat out forgot the words. I looked at him, craned my neck toward the lyrics sitting right at his feet, then shrugged as if to say, “What the…” Carlos chuckled and suggested that perhaps they were written in Chinese. Toward the end of the night, we did all of the songs that Dale doesn’t sing, as he isn’t use to doing two nights in a row. This meant Carlos singing Inside Out, which we don’t do too often anymore. He fudged the beginning bad. He immediately stopped and joked about it. After he started again, I started giving him the same look I had given Dale earlier. He started laughing – not too easy to sing that way – and commented that at least his wasn’t in Chinese. I almost wet myself. We did a Rush song, which Julie hates, and it was all good again.

Julie had showed up again at the end of the night, despite having told me the night before that she had other plans. When I asked her about this, she told me that she just brought her date along with her. When I turned around, I was shocked to see Kevin Kalka standing there grinning at me. This was turning into a very entertaining evening. Some woman came up to me before the start of the last set and asked if I wanted to dance with her. I politely told her that I had to go back up and play soon and wasn’t interested, but thanked her anyway. She looked right at me and said that I was lying. Huh? She then asked Carlos if he was interested, to which he replied that he was simply too tired. She said, “Another lie!” Huh? She then asked the soundman if he was interested, to which he simply replied, “No.” I looked at her and asked if that was a lie, too. She got all irate and started mumbling something about not having to lie to her. She then asked if there was something wrong with her or the way she looked. I said, “No” (now, I might have been lying!). I then lit into her about why she was still standing there talking to me if I was just lying to her. She apologized for the accusations and said that her feelings were hurt. I told her that I couldn’t imagine why – it’s not like I called her a liar or anything. After she finally went away, Eddie laughed and noted that the only guy on the stage that had actually been dancing (Dale) was the only guy she didn’t ask to dance. Entertainment value, I tell you.

I stopped and talked a bit with Julie and Kevin after tear-down, then made my way to Jesus’ truck for some fajitas for the drive home. Unfortunately, I forgot to tell him to make me sweat, so they weren’t hot at all. They were still excellent nonetheless. I enjoyed them along with the first Liquid Tension Experiment CD on the way home. Another one in the books.