Gig Report: New Year's Eve at the Sandston Moose Lodge

Now that I'm on my third cuppa Joe, I might be able to type something almost coherent here . . .

The current lineup has been together for about 6 months now, and we've not only become comfortable with the set list, we're comfortable with each other. We don't just play music any more, we play with each other and the audience - a bit more mugging and clowning, a bit more "flash." Our sound tech's wife put it this way: "Y'all play a great mix of music, and it's pretty obvious y'all are having a ball up on stage. When y'all dedicated Cocaine as 'our tribute to Paris Hilton,' I thought I was going to pee my britches I was laughing so hard!"

I think we wore the line dancers out last night. They bounced out of their seats with the first song, and we could count on 10-12 attractive women and some of their boyfriends/husbands synced up and steppin' on just about every up tempo song we did.

Yes, my "groupies" were there . . . they were pretty well primed to party when we started. It was, um, interesting at midnight.

Our strategy of doing "roadhouse music" - or variety with a twang is working really well for us. The entertainment manager at the lodge said, "You're one of a very few bands we've had that don't have at least a few people coming to me and saying 'They're good, but they don't play enough ________ music.' You're definitely going to be on our A list for our major functions."

All in all, it was just a really *fun* gig to do. The crowd was cheerfully rowdy, they made sure we were fed - supper before we played and breakfast afterwards. One of those gigs that make you go: "Yeah . . . I get PAID to have this much fun!"