(diaryland) July 19, 2000 - 13:11:30

We had our first gig. Finally. Unfolding Mud's first gig has officially occured. Yay.

It was at the Arthouse, a little pub near my university (Melbourne University). There were cushions stuck all over the ceiling, yet the floor was hard. Michele and I wore ties. We looked very, very distinctive. Diane wore purple stuff.

We had to do the setting up, and I basically moved big boxes around while everyone else did stuff that was actually useful. I set up my guitar rather quickly and I felt awfully proud of that. But then at soundcheck, my guitar sounded like a happy little rat, which wasn't quite the sound I was after. It was embarrassing. I thought the whole gig was doomed. Then I realised that my effects processor was set on "headphones". Raaaaah!

About 150 people were there. Quite a few of my friends turned up, which was pleasant. They all smiled politely. We started playing and I was shaking a lot. Especially my knees. I was glad that I had chosen to wear a skirt that just covered my knees. Good thinking, me! I also had ear plugs. Diane did not. She must be extremely deaf by now, banging away on the drums all night and all that.

The first two songs went very nicely, except for the bit when Michele thought that her bass wasn't making any sound at all and stopped playing. After that, I calmed down a bit and if I drew a graph of the mistakes I made throughout the gig, it would be a little bit like an exponential decay graph.

Dang, I knew Year 12 Maths would come in handy ONE day.

Anyway, I think that there were no problems with my singing and bla bla bla and a fun time was had by all.

Afterwards, I got a lot of feedback as to how we sounded. My friend Adrian said that we sounded like Sonic Youth, but I bet he says that to all the guitar bands. I don't think we sound very much like them at all. A dude who was with Michele's mum said that we sounded like Radio Birdman. I kinda like that, but I don't see us sounding like them either. I was happiest with Matt, the transport guy, who said that even though we had really good equipment and effects pedals and all that sort of thing, we still sounded like a 60s garage band. I was rapt.

Next up there was Transatlantic. It was their first gig too. Lloyd, the singer, had all the stage moves down pat. Very classy. I had a lemondade at the bar, and people kept on telling me about this "Rider" guy and I didn't know why. Was he like Matt, the transport guy? I asked my guitar teacher who the mystery rider person was, and she told me the rider was the free drinks you get for playing. OH. I had a "slap my head really hard" moment, kinda like the moment earlier on when I realised my pedal was set to "headphones".

For the rest of the night I sat by the door with various other people. It was great. Then Diane, Michele and my sister Lisa all squeezed into Diane's car with all our stuff and went off in search of hot dogs. We ended up at the Seven-Eleven, looking at a bunch of raw sausages rotating on a grill. There was one cooked sausage, but no-one wanted that one. It could have been poisonous. The dude behind the counter insisted that the sausages were all cooked, so we took them. They were cold, man. Almost entirely floppily stone cold. Urg. I ate all of mine. I thought I'd never wake up the next morning, but I did.

I never quite know how to finish my diary entries. So, I'll end this one this way.