Last night was the Open Mic night concert. It was held out in the summer cam lounge. Summer camp is a series of "temporary" buildings off the main site of the base. At 5:30 or so, we all set everything up. There was a lot of really nice sound gear to hook up. Danny even brought out his computer to try and record the show. Not sure how it turned out yet. I'll find out when I see him. At 8:30 we all came back for a sound check. My band did a little last-minute rehearsal as well. Once the show started, there were probably about 20 people in the room. There were a few acoustic acts first, then a guy who read some of his poetry. It was pretty good, but a little personal. I don't need to know about his family's problems. Then his girlfriend played some songs. She was very good. Afterwards, Mark and his guys got up and played for a while. I felt bad for Mark since the crowd was really obnoxious for most of it. It was understandable. It was their only night off of the week and they wanted to hang out and party, not listen to pleasant music. Mark played with this guy named Brandon who played some fairly crude songs. They were very funny, but it kind of annoyed me. They ended with an acoustic version of Jin and Juice. It's been done before. The crowd was really into it, though. I didn't want to follow that guy. After him, another acoustic act came up. I think his name was Eric. He was really good, but it just wasn't the right crowd for his stuff. I even pulled my solo act from the night because it just wasn't right for the crowd. By this point, I'm several beers deep and really anxious to play. Finally, we go on stage. Everyone was really really excited. We definitely melted some faces. A while back, Danny, Eli, and myself were hanging out in the music room when we started to play Blister in the Sun for fun. We talked about how funny it would be to play nothing but violent femmes songs. Well, the next night, I walk into the band room and Eli and Danny are playing some violent femmes songs. I just hopped right in, and the Violet Phlegm was born. We played a bunch of violent femmes songs last night, and everyone was jumping around and dancing, and just generally going crazy for us! It was awesome! After the set, I switched to electric guitar and danny, oren (the drummer), and I started jamming. This is when I really got to shine. People were really starting to dance once we let into some fast blues tracks. After a few tracks, the people kept yelling for more, so we launched into some hendrix tunes. The crowd was really going wild. They literally didn't let me stop playing. I must have done almost a dozen 'last songs'. It was a lot of fun to play in front of a crowd again. I'm totally in the wrong profession...
After the show people were coming up to me and saying how they were going to try to force me to stay longer. One guy who said that actually has a say in flight scheduling! It was really funny. It made me feel really good.
A lot of my group showed up for the concert. It was cool to be able to show them my passion outside of work. It was also cool to see some of them very drunk. I will leave names out of it since they may even be reading this, but at least one was really really drunk, and it was cool to see. Oh, the SPT (South Pole Telescope) people were there too. We've had a good relationship with them, since we work in the same lab and do similar experiments. One of the SPT girls was a little too drunk. When I refused to dance with her, she bit me in the shoulder. I was not amused.
It was all around a good show, and a great night. I love playing music for people. It's just the best.
I've played at some really incredible venues in my life, but I think headlining at the south pole might take the cake.
A pic of the stage
Me and my band!
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