We arrived to sound check at the Key Club around 3pm. All the Key Club guys were great helping us get our scene together, and I was blown away by how good the monitors were onstage, I am not so used to hearing myself that clearly, it was nice. Doheny had a whole multimedia experience to set up, so there were people all over the place buzzing about. Internally, we were mulling over the set list right up until the last second. Dave came up with the idea to play “Night One” from Project P for the show. At first I thought he was crazy, seeing as even if we do play this (P) as a band project, it’s months away from being able to be worked on because we have to finish the record first. Not to mention that “Night One” is 8 minutes long, with a bunch of different parts, and even if we did get it happening, the chances of owning it seemed slim. His reasoning was that I have been very inspired by working on this music and that we should strike where the iron is hot. He turned out to be 100% right. We concentrated on Night One during our rehearsals Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. It is really an enjoyable jam to play, many dynamics. As the show got nearer, it was still up in the air if we should play it or not, and even though it sounded good, I was into shelving it till the next gig, but Dave was adamant.

We played it at sound check and it sounded tight enough, so we decided to keep it in. We all went our separate ways, and reconvened at 9pm a the club. Rolling Stone came down and wanted to take some pictures and do a quick interview that might appear in the magazine’s random notes section. Afterwards, we caught a little of Doheny’s show (Billy did a great job with video elements shown by a bunch of tv’s strewn across the stage), then I got into pre-show mode. This can be different depending on the show, I tend not to like to be around people before I play. The underground backstage area of the Key Club was getting pretty crowded with people, and I realized I couldn’t get my “space” on, so I took a walk down Sunset, found a quiet space, and warmed up my voice and found my Zen. I warm up religiously before shows and (usually) rehearsals, and find that it’s not just good to have the chords all ready for singing, but the repetitive rhythmic breathing required to warm up ends up being very calming, too. I finished my alone time about 10:15 – with an ART of 10:20, I headed back to the club.

Donovan introduced us, and we played. Everyone in the band was in a great mood, and we were really stoked to hit the stage. Dave was wearing a fuzzy leopard print cowboy hat, Perkins had a Zappa shirt on, Chris had a Black Sabbath shirt, and I was wearing the top part of this year’s Halloween costume, a skeleton torso. The set was: Go On, Unholy Ghost, The Loophole, She Won’t Last, Outsider, Bloody Mary, Half Hearted, Ashes and Night One.

First off, the stage at the Key Club rocks. It’s really nice and spacious and Dave had room to cruise, and when I wasn’t married to the mic, I got to take a look around, too. You can see the crowd really good and clear, and the lighting setup is amazing. The whole show passed by like it was an instant, I guess that’s a good thing: “Time flies…”. At sound check, I met a guy named Lyn who had come all the way from Atlanta, Georgia to see the show, and I could see him in the crowd on Dave’s side – gave him a shout out, the least I could do.

Perkins was up on a drum riser, I like that, it was cool to see him at eye level, and with the Christmas lights on his chrome kit, when the house lights were down, he looked like a king on his throne. Dave was on fire, he played really Zen and obviously knows how to work a big stage, all “kid in a candy store” style.

Then it was time to play Night One. As soon as Dave played the opening part (I call it the “theme”), I knew we were going to be fine. The song just came out like it wanted to be played right then and there. The verses are kind of Pink Floyd and dreamy, then the B section is like a dentist’s drill. Couldn’t be more fun to play. I was really impressed at how well Chris and Stephen held it all together, because for the rhythm section, it’s simply a TON of parts, looking back at the tape at their performances, you’d never know that we started jamming the song only 3 days before.

After the show we chilled a bit in the backstage bomb shelter, then headed out to the after thing in the “plush” room. It was a tad psycho in there, but the vibe from the people was great. From there, a bunch of us walked to the Rainbow and had some Italian food (Riss and I rocked the pepperoni & pineapple pizza). At one point, they were playing Audioslave, and in walks Tom Morello. Good times.

Rantz couldn’t make it to the show, but when I got home and checked my mail, he had sent me an illustration he had been working on of the main character from “Project P” – the one that Night One is about. That was the cherry on the sundae for me, finishing playing this new song, then coming home and seeing that.

Thanks to Larissa Friend, Billy Morrison, Phil Hutson, Mark Vangool, Dan Cleary, Pucchi, Sean for doing sound, Sean S from Suicide Girls, the great people at the Key Club, the 6767’s, Lyn for coming out from Atlanta, my Cupertino friends, and everyone else who came out and brought the cans of food.  I hope you had as much fun as I did on Thursday.