Being at the gig means you’ve made it to the gig, and sometimes 

that’s no small feat.  I could bore you to a pulmonary embolism 

telling about the number of gigs the route thereto was beset by 

traffic, pressing issues both mechanical and gastrointestinal, or a 

GPS system with a sadistic sense of humor.  There’s also load-ins 

with which to deal, some of them blessedly easy and some of 

them arduous on the low end and downright treacherous on the nasty 

end.  So being onstage and ready to hit on time means that there are 

a number of hoops through which one has successfully jumped.  

This is a fairly huge release.  

  

There was the time I was screwing around just across the border in 

Iowa. I was on a run for potato chips.  The best potato chips 

in the world are made in Burlington, Iowa, and if you don't believe 

me, go to www.sterzingchips.com and tri-some for yourself. They're worth 

a three-hour drive. I left that morning around eight, knowing I had a 

gig that night in Oak Brook but certain I would be back in time.  

I’d taken one route there, which took about four and a half hours, but 

the route home was Route 34 and would have me there in three, 

plenty of time to load the car and get to the gig.  I did not know, 

however, that Route 34 was impassable due to recent flooding, and 

that the only other route back that I knew was the one I’d taken to get 

there.   I beat my tired old Civic mercilessly on the way home, surprised 

that it could still do ninety, and told myself that if I somehow managed 

through some miracle to make it to the gig in time to hit, I would donate 

a large sum to charity.  I made it and put that gig’s earnings in the collection 

plate at church.  

  

So once I’m there, loaded in and in my spot, I’m always relieved.  But there’s 

a bit of a tradeoff—okay, I got here in time.  I remembered all my 

stuff.  Everything’s plugged in and powered up.  But the amp bag—with the 

amp still in it, natch—fell out of the back of the car when I opened the tailgate.  

Does it still work?  Cables attached, lights on, mute off, volume up—whew.  

There’s been a gig or two I can remember where it didn’t.  A good hearty smack 

took care of the problem then, but will it always?  A part of me wants to bring 

two amps to every gig, but that’s not practical. 

  

Batteries in pedals and tuners go kaflooey.  If you’re smart, you keep extra 9-volts 

in the gig bag somewhere.  If you’re stupid, you leave them in the gig 

bag where you can’t reach them.  If you’re lucky, a band leader will start a 

conversation of sorts with the crowd and you can run backstage and grab your 

stash of batteries.  Then you need another pause in the action to swap them out.  

You get good at this fast.  Or you could just wait for a set break. 

  

Sometimes cables crap out in the middle of a song.  Furiously wiggling them with 

one hand whilst playing completely hammer-on with the other hand is sometimes 

effective.  Sometimes it isn't. 

  

This time, everything works.  I’m tuned up and ready to go.  Just waiting for the first 

tune to be called.  Oh God—will it be something I don’t know?  Was I supposed to 

have learned some stuff?  Did everybody get an email except me with a list of tunes 

to study and I’m the only one that didn’t get it?  Oh God oh God oh God oh God 

oh God—oh good, I know that one.  Sometimes I don’t.  I have a pretty good ear and 

have been scared badly enough on more thanone occasion that I now pay a lot of 

attention to faces, hands, and body English and can usually get through it, even 

though the first pass might be a little sketchy.  There’s also been times where I’m 

left high and dry, and then everyone in the audience thinks the bass player’s either 

profoundly stupid or ragingly ‘faced.  There was one occasion when I was so clueless 

about the tune we had just started that I stopped playing completely. Thankfully, only 

one.  For some reason that band leader continues to hire me.  Go figure. 

  

You often run into issues with the crowd, too.  People waving large-denominational bills and 

demanding tunes.  What if I’m the only guy that doesn’t know the tune this jamoke is 

asking for?  It’s a lot easier and a lot more fun when it’s a tune nobody knows.  I was 

playing with a little three-piece jazz-and-blues combo in an upscale club downtown, and 

we’re doing something kinda raunchy—Freddie King’s “Hideaway” or something like that.  

Some drunk schlamozzle squishily heaves himself off of his bar stool and comes toward the 

stage.  I’m watching the guy, so when he looks at me, we make eye contact—crap—and he 

comes over towards me.  I’m playing here and the guy wants to start a conversation.  

I sigh and get ready. 

  

“You guys know any Elton John.”  The phrasing is reminiscent of a question, but he says it 

like a sentence.  He’s also been hitting the Early Times quite hard by the miasma 

surrounding him. 

  

“What?”  I understood the guy perfectly; I just don’t believe him. 

  

“You guys know any Elton John.” 

  

I have to concentrate on the changes under the bridge of the song we’re currently busy 

playing, so it takes me a little while and then I say, “You’ll have to talk to that guy,” 

pointing  with my head.  “He’s the band leader.” 

  

Mr. Drunkypants sloshes his way over to the band leader, who presently has his hands 

literally full with piano and is singing as well.  No matter; Dr. Douchebagenstein starts 

talking and simultaneously pulls wad of dead presidents out of his pocket.  He peels off a 

greenback and damned if it isn’t a hundred. 

  

The band leader has gotten the message, but we don’t know any 

Elton John songs.  It’s set break, though, and we’ve got 15 minutes to figure it out.  

We liberally apply someone’s cell phone to pull some lyrics and open the next set with 

what turns out to be a pretty dead-nuts cover of “Bennie and the Jets.” 

  

Okay; we’ve played some Elton John even though we’ve been 

playing blues and jazz for the past hour in a club well-known throughout the 

city for the quality of its blues-and-jazz acts, and this guy’s a rude-ass 

jackwagon whose bankroll is bigger than his brain.  We held up our end of the bargain.  

The portrait of Ben Franklin is tucked in the band leader’s pocket.  We’re all thinking 

that this gig, which includes dinner but which monetary value is often hindered 

by the ludicrous expense of parking in Chicago, just got a lot more lucrative.  

Between tunes, the band leader looks over. 

  

“Do you think maybe we should try to pull together one more Elton tune?  The guy 

gave us a hondo, after all.  I could pull off ‘Your Song’ if I had the lyrics.” 

  

I nod. “Can you start something and give me thirty seconds to look for the lyrics?” 

  

He nods and starts playing a tune called “Riviera Paradise,” which has a pretty long 

intro.  I find the lyrics easily enough and put the phone on the music stand, where the band 

leader can see it.  We’re all cued up and ready to give it the old college try when Boozy 

McDorknozzle comes weaving up.  This time he’s got his fur all in a twist and 

again, despite the fact that we are playing, starts talking.  Well, yelling. 

  

“I gave you guys a (INSERT DRUNKENLY-SLURRED EXPLETIVE HERE) C-note and all I 

got was one (INSERT THE SAME DRUNKENLY-SLURRED EXPLETIVE HERE) song?” He 

goes on like this for a while. 

  

The band leader stops playing and calmly asks, “Do you want your money back, man?” 

  

“You’re (INSERT A DIFFERENT BUT STILL DRUNKENLY-SLURRED EXPLETIVE HERE) right.” 

  

The band leader fishes it out of his pocket and hands it to Captain Cirrhosis who stuffs 

into his own pocket and turns around just in time to be escorted out by security.  

Nice.  We play him out to “The Stumble.” 

  

It generally takes an entire set to get past the jitters and start enjoying myself, and once 

that happens, that’s when the fun begins.  Or can potentially begin; I’ll say this right 

now and get it out of the way.  There are tunes I’m called upon to play regularly that I 

despise, and profoundly.  I have no fun playing them and in fact dread them.  However, 

some of the musicians with whom I regularly work are also my friends, so I think I’ll keep 

that list to myself.  Besides, that’s part of the territory being a jobber like myself. 

  

But there are also songs that remind me why I play music in the first place, and they are 

songs to which I look forward.  Even songs I don’t get to play anymore. 

  

Like “Respect.“ 

  

Or “Say it in Spanish.” 

  

Or “Rainy Night in Georgia.” 

  

Or “Saturday in the Park.” 

  

Or “The Green Manalishi.” 

  

Or “Undone.” 

  

Or “Sit Down, Baby.” 

  

Or “Forty-Four Blues.” 

  

Or “Take Out some Insurance.” 

  

Or “Honky Tonk Woman.” 

  

Or “Tick Tock.” 

  

Or “Roll Over Beethoven.” 

  

Or “A Pirate Looks at 40.” 

  

Or “Drift Away.” 

  

Or “Brown-Eyed Girl.” 

  

Or “The Curly Shuffle.” 

  

Or “Gemini.” 

  

Or that monstrous medley that Paul and Jay does, which is almost an hour long and by the 

end of which I am howling out lyrics to everything from AC/DC to Foreigner.  I usually 

collapse in a heap at the end.  Ask my friend Garrett.  He’ll tell you.  (Miss you, buddy. 

Rest in peace.)

  

Or that awesome Motown medley that starts with that sweetly familiar bass-and-guitar 

intro to “My Girl” and ends with “Dance to the Music,” a tune and an arrangement 

that easily outdistances any which I have heretofore played for its ability to bring a 

crowd to a fever pitch.  By the end of that one people are jumping and vocals are 

screaming and cymbals are crashing and Leslies are swirling and horns are swelling 

and the Big Muff, which is the only effects pedal I use, is muffing its little circuit 

boards out and my eardrums are crackling despite the earplugs.  

  

That’s why I do this stuff.  Not for the money, though it’s appreciated and sometimes 

all I have on which to get by, when the car’s broken again and the vet bills are mounting 

and I still have to pay the mortgage and, somewhere in the midst of all that, I still have 

to buy food.  There’s nothing like the embarrassment of running groceries past the 

checkout clerk and then having to walk away without them because the card’s declined 

and there’s nothing else in the wallet.  They won’t let you put them back by yourself, 

either.  

  

I don’t always need the money.  I need the music, though.  I love my job, and it’s a 

fulfilling vocation, but my life would have a pretty big hole in it without the 

chance to get up and play.  I’ve never had more fun in my life than when I’m onstage 

somewhere, and that’s including the shows with a hiccup or two.  Those hiccups say 

“Hey, this is live.  You are here.  This isn’t a recording.  Now get up there and throw down.” 

  

Gladly.