Paying our dues… The WoodGrain way-The Legend of the 4 hour soundcheck
It was a night to remember… a day to forget. So why am I immortalizing it here on the intra-web? Because it’s really to damn funny a’story not to share with the masses. Or… at least the ten or twelve fans of The WoodGrain who haven’t already heard the legend of the four hour soundcheck.
It was Grand opening weekend for Rockin’ Paradise (formerly Hiccup’s & Daddy Rocks) & The WoodGrain was slated to headline the entertainment this past Sat. Nov. 14th. To try to insure that things would go off without a hitch during the evening The WoodGrain agree’d to meet at R.P. early (3PM) to coordinate things with D.J. YagerMonster… (seriously). We knew that they had house P.A. speakers for D.J. YM to blast tunes during our breaks, but we were responsible for bringing a soundboard for all the band mic.’s.
Once all members of The WoodGrain were set up…& our new sometime-part-time soundman Stark a.k.a. “Slink” had everything coordinated with D.J. YM… we all very casually took 15 thinking “We’ll come back…knock this out…then go home & party like rockstars until showtime…”
Right…
This is where things went haywire… Everything SHOULD have worked… nothing did… Hoping to have been back at my place eating like kings (thanks Andrea) by 4:30… it became 5:30 before we deduced that EVERYTHING worked except the soundboard we had brought. This was NOT GOOD. Myself, D.J.YM, & Mr. Nate were frantically calling each of our limited contacts in hopes we’d find a soundboard (such a delicate & usually valuable piece of equipment) on such incredibly short notice…on a Saturday night. I was ready to give up hope & cancel the show when a name popped up in my phone… A name I wasn’t sure I even had the right phone number for. That name was Henry Story, dummer of Grandma Black. Grandma Black was the cover band I (Joey Black) used to front. Not knowing what to expect. Not expecting much if anything… I said “fuck it” & dialed Henry.
Halelujah he answered & actually had a soundboard we could use!!!
After making the 45 min. round trip to the Colony & back I triumphantly re-entered Rockin’ Paradise…new soundboard in hand. We could FINALLY do a sound check!!! Problem was, our stomachs were growling loud enough at this point to be heard through the mics. & Franky had already had to leave. After all that we rushed through an extremely shaky, crowd annoying, half assed sound check.
Over four hours we’d gone from pride & confidence to unsure hopefullness to complete desparation & back to YOU GUESSED it pride & confidence & BACK to unsure hopefullness. At least we could finally go home & EAT.
After an AWESOME meal (again, Thanks Andrea) our pride & confidence once again ran high. After all, we ARE The WoodGrain…the greatest bluesfolks music band on the planet! Where there’s The WoodGrain there’s a way.
The show went great. We had a great turn out & hopefully added to our ever growing list of crazy die hard fans. We hope to play Rockin’ Paradise again soon. They really do have the cheapest drinks in Lewisville. Special thanks to Stark. He stressed out over the whole soundcheck thing more than we did, and thank god because we couldn’t have pulled the show off without him.
Thanks a ton to the R.P. management and staff. Thanks to Mongo on security. Thanks to the us… The WoodGrain… for kickin’ ass & takin’ names. Thanks to Henry. Thanks most of all to the fans. We love you!
The Tues. Interviews will be back soon!