I'm not a Rock Star, but sometimes, I do get to do some Rock Star kind of things. For instance, plug in my guitar and play r&r music for lots of folks. I mean, usually it's not for lots of folks, it is usually for small gatherings. But once in awhile, for instance over the weekend, I got a chance to play for lots of folks.
In this case, it was a small, neighborhood Chicago bar full of drunk folks. Lots of drunk folks. I mean, a small place overstuffed with drunk people. It was quite the scene. The band arrived in the aftermath of the crowd watching "The Big Game;" it doesn't matter what game it is, there is always a game, a Big Game, and drunk folks always, always like to watch the game.
The music on the sound system was ear-splitting. Volume is required to try to penetrate the drunken fog hanging over everyone. Folks were dancing, drunkenly. Folks were singing. Folks were drinking to excess. Folks were staring blearily at the video screens above the bar. This was a place full of people having serious fun.
Our garage-rock band took the stage and the crowd thinned a bit. We tried to fill the space, to seize the room with our raw, r&r sound. Didn't really happen. The crowd wasn't there to see and hear us. We were just another noise floating in the space. It was like playing for one large, multi-limbed, multi-headed beast occupied with other things. Deranging of the senses. It's a lifestyle. We flailed about a little, and actually started playing like a drunken band of fools. It was weird. The energy of the crowd kind of seeped into us too.
We were lost. Swallowed up like just another shot of some rot-gut poison. It was sort of a debacle of a performance. We got louder, played more recklessly, seemingly looking for some kind of connection, but it all kind of short-circuited. Afterwards, there was a hollowness. A bad feeling of ineptness. Add it to the great fog of unknowingness. I was stone-cold sober, thinking about the hangover of the hangover.
