2nd Worst Show Ever

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Some folks are under the mistaken impression that my band, The Alphabet, is famous. To disprove this misconception, consider the following:

• Last night, we, The Alphabet, played a concert in Pasadena, Maryland, at a restaurant called Cheeseburger in Paradise. It was, in fact, a weekly Wednesday night Battle of the Bands.


• We got this show because I am our manager, and for a number of reasons, not least of which is procrastination, I didn't start booking our tour 'til a month before we were supposed to play it, and this Battle of the Bands at Cheeseburger in Paradise was what we could get.


• The other two bands were called Harmsway and Less than Zero. Harmsway was a metal cover band. Less than Zero was a classic rock cover band. They were both local.


• We played last, after Less than Zero's set. We noticed as they were tearing down that they were taking the PA with them. This worried us, as we don't have a PA. Even if we did we couldn't fit it in the station wagon.


• Upon frantically questioning the woman who had been announcing the bands, we learned that the venue DID have its own PA, but that it had no microphones or mic stands.


• Parker unearthed one microphone from his bass case.


• Forest taped it to the cymbal stand.


• We then remembered that we didn't have an extra 1/4" cable for the keyboard, and furthermore that when we'd tried to use a borrowed one at our show the previous night, it kept cutting out and we ended up mic'ing the piano speakers, which worked just fine.


• Except this venue didn't have any more microphones.


• One of the members of Less than Zero kindly loaned us a microphone and mic stand.


• We began to sound check and discovered that both the PA speakers were blown.


• We had no way to amplify either the piano or my voice, other than the built-in piano speakers.


• We turned the piano up all the way, and I shouted, and Forest and Parker played very quietly.

So. The end. We made $20 in CD sales. Eight people had come exclusively to see us, which was actually quite impressive. In conclusion, we are not yet rockstars. But we will be soon.

[P.S. The worst show ever was in Kent, Ohio. The only audience members were the other band.]