Spotlight Fright: Part I

The very second Maui told me he had booked our first gig I felt my heart drop threw my pants, burrow down into the core of the earth and successfully make it to China were it would live a peaceful, non-invasive life away from playing guitar in front of people. To say I was terrified would have been the equivalent of saying “water is wet”.

Why would I be? Even before the band Maui and I played a handful of open mics around Houston just by ourselves. The very first open mic we signed up for was at a little place off of Jones called The Crooked Ferret Pub. We had been there a few times and saw some pretty good acts but the best by a loooong shot was legendary local Freddie Everret. More than just an amazing showman, Freddie played without boundaries. Watching and hearing him play was an experience. It’s what I would imagine it was like to watch Hendrix play. That’s not hyperbole.

Freddie played as though it was going to be the last time he was ever going to play guitar, every time. He smiled big and his face contorted to the music flying off his fingers. There was no shame, no fear when he played. More than anything, even more than wanting to be able to play just like him, I wanted to be able to get on stage and give myself fully to the moment like he did.

But that didn’t happen in time for our first open mic.

I spent a good 20 minutes just driving around the area of the pub, still deciding on whether or not I could actually get up in front of a group of people and play songs that we had written. “I could totally crash my car! Then I wouldn’t have to play!”.  Maui was already there and 2 other friends. My heart had been racing since I woke up that morning, almost 15 hours earlier. I finally showed, 10 minutes later than I had originally planned. We set up, did a quick tuning check and strum strum strum the show went on. After we finished I was on cloud 9. Phew, never have to do that again! And I was sooo fucking wrong!

The next open mic we signed up for was at The Hideaway on Dunvale. We showed up, guitars still in the car and just signed our names on the open mic sheet. Then we sat down and watched the house band start things off. And then we had our collective minds BLOWN away by Rick Lee of Rick Lee and the Night Owls. This man quite literally made Maui and I look at each other, look at Rick Lee and then at the sign up sheet we had just signed and we decided for the sake of our dignity that we would walk away without even playing. An unassuming Asian man in a regular suit; he looked like he just got out of the office was stopping by the bar to have a few drinks.  But NO, this man came to MELT YOUR FUCKING FACE OFF with searing guitar solos, drinking a bottle of heineken with one hand and playing a legato lead section with the other and then using the empty bottle to play slide guitar. He walked on top of and from table to table, seemingly possessed by the Holy Spirit. He placed the guitar in the lap of a pretty young thing in the front and proceeded to play with his mouth while simulating oral sex on her.

No fucking way. We left.

As we walked back to the car, defeated before even playing we heard someone call after us. “Hey you guys, were ya’ll going?” I looked at Maui quickly and when we turned around we saw it was none other than Rick Lee. “Ya’ll two signed up for the open mic? You goin’ to get your guitars?” I didn’t have the guts to tell him “Well you just set of a nuclear bomb in there and we only have firecrackers with us, so we’ll just be on our merry way.” He tried to convince us to stay and “just jam man” but we were  already set on leaving. We said goodbye and left, on our not-so-merry way. We needed to come back. We needed REDEMPTION!!

So we returned the following week, signed in anew and waited in a room full of friends for our time to go on. Little did we know that it would be the worst set we would ever do in our lives…

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