Gig Report - Life is Drama's Double Header Weekend

This past weekend my band LIFE IS DRAMA played a double header. We played at Mullets Sports Bar (Homer Glen, IL) on Friday night and at Exit 197 (Pontiac, IL) on Saturday night. This was my first time playing at Mullets but they played here once before. They told me it was a 2 room bar, when you walk in its the main bar w/high table seating and in the back left is another room that expands around the back w/another bar. The last time they played in between the 2 rooms. When we loaded in the back the stage was right there to our right and the room was walled off with a double glass door now. This way the patrons who want to watch the band have to go through the doors to hang out with us and those who don't want to hear the band don't have too. Not a bad setup for the bar but we had people who knew we were playing there & walked in but didn't see us so they left. :(

The back room has a pretty cool vibe to it w/a bar, high 4 top tables and leather couches for seating. I was a little concerned with the layout and trying to figure out how to pull people from the front of the bar to the back with us. I spread out all our business cards out in the room we were in but I didn't in the front part of the bar. I figured if they weren't interested in coming back there to check us out they weren't interested in the band.

The bar and the band REALLY promoted this gig heavily on Facebook and when we talked to the manager before we started she said the bar used to have bands and then stopped when it wasn't bringing in the crowds and now they started again. We had approx 40ppl back there with us when we started and we had them up and dancing about half way through the first set. It was a fun crowd and they stayed with us until the end of the second set which was cool and we picked up some new fans!!! :D I tried my in ear monitors again and the last time my guitar wasn't in the mix and this time we couldn't get the vocals and everything was all distorted so I just gave up on them Friday night. At the end of the night the manager didn't say anything, she just gave us the money but they had positive things to say on Facebook the next day so we'll see if we get to play there again.

On Saturday night we made our trek back down to Exit 197 in Pontiac. We're booked to play here every 3 months through Dec 2012  :D Again we had about 40ppl here Sat night and the shot girl made a LOT OF $$$!!! We took a pic of the shot glass pyramid on the band table (80 shots) that our fans bought (and we had a few) :D I posted it on my Facebook page. Again I tried my in ear monitors and we got everything working this time. The sound seemed really distorted in my ears but it was ok to play with. When I played my guitar it was fine, when the other guitar player played it was fine but when the drummer and the band played it seemed there was too much incoming signal to process and I think that might be due to the mic placement on my amp was picking up the whole band but I really don't know at this point. Both nights we really played tight like “pros” and the crowd really picked up on it. After we finished on Sat night one of the patrons came up to me and said “You guys need to play at JT's in Dwight”!! Now everytime we've played in Dwight & Pontiac someone has always we need to play JT's so I gave him a bunch of my business cards and told him to take them to JT's and I sent JT's an email and I'll call them so we'll see if we book a show there soon.

Our next gig is Sat 3/24/12 for a return gig @ Kegglers (905 Theodore St, Crest Hill, IL) and the pics from America's Bar up on my Facebook Page and “LIKE” our page!!! We added 3 new “Likes” from these last weekends' shows!!

Thanks for reading and all the great comments & KEEP ROCKIN' !!!!

Tommy Gunz