Afterfall @ The Roxy

I'm going to handle the concerts at The Roxy in several posts. First, Afterfall. The set began around 9 p.m. to a crowded room. We were very excited and Dale Dimapandan, our new bass player, was very nervous (but, did a good job hiding it). We came out to an enthusiastic reception with our first tune, "Butterfly," which is a moody and ethereal song and one of my favorites. It was well received and we were off to the races. We then played "Alone Again," followed by "Big Mistake."

Next, was my favorite song, "Tomorrow," which is kind of a Rush meets Foo Fighters song. We were flying along fine when a cable malfunctioned, rendering me without sound during the extended guitar solo. I was totally bummed because I love that part of the song. As is typical, virtually noone in the audience knew what had happened, since Darren (lead singer, guitarist pictured above) ably covered me on the solo. After the song, I told Darren to play a tune that we had set aside as an audible, called "Celluloid World." It's a mellow song with beautiful harmonies that did not involve much guitar playing by me. As he was introducing the song, I found the bad cable, gave it a tweak and had sound! So, we dithced the audible and finished the set without a hitch. The crowd seemed to love it and I think Darren and Wade were pleased that their new song "Paint This Town Black & White" was a favorite.

Even though I've had things go wrong at shows many times in the past, it's still hard to shake after the gig. We had worked so hard prior to the show to perfect the set and then something so small goes awry and ruins a part of it. I mainly felt like I let the guys down. But, they were very gracious and, as I said, nobody seemed to know. That made me feel better. But, I was determined to redeem myself during the Lower Than Angels portion of the show.