Gene Pool The Backroom Bar (aka The Loft) Flint, MI March 25th, 1994
Set I /Sympathy for the Devil Fire on the Mountain Endless Highway Minglewood Peggy 0 Cold Shot Bobby McGee Gloria > Down Under> Hard to Handle
Set II Her Majesty > Chalkdust Torture Tangled Up In Blue (first) Werewolves of London > Jam > Franklin's Tower Possum Dear Prudence Rueben and Cerise (first) Contact/
Set III (missing)
Ger Hoffman - bass, vocals Jeff Warner - lead, vocals Paul Marnell- rhythm, vocals Bob Bond - drums
This was an odd place to play. Many things went wrong. No one person gets all the blame. But, I'll take my share. Ger wanted a decent live tape to take around to other bars to get out of 'The Backroom' for more space and more money. The boom box was brought and plugged into the customized lightboard (via John Chionard) and set directly in front of Jeff's amp 10' away. At the time, the Backroom had acoustic duos and singer/songwriters set up right between the main entrance and the bar. You couldn't miss 'em. As a four-piece, however, people had to walk around us to get in and stand in line in front of us to get a drink. The people who came to see us had to peer around the folks milling at the bar, and the bottle-neck at the entrance kept new people stumbling into equiptment and wondering: ...the fuck?! To make this even more ludicrous, the house PA was ment for DJ's and Muzak. There were two huge speakers way up top in a 15'-20' ceiling pointing towards (not kidding) the front doors. There were no monitors and nothing for the patrons save for mush. I noticed a few minutes into 'Sympathy' the red limiter lights on the boom box, Jeff is drowning everything out. I'm pretty clever and instruct Brian and John to turn the boom box towards the ceiling hoping it would pick up the PA over Jeff's amp. MUUUSHHHH. At least it's a satisfying, warm, goopy mush. Ger has a short throughout the first few songs (Arizona Santiago fixes it), Paul is still new at playing with us, I'm playing Damon Schwartz' drum kit (and boy, is it different), and Jeff is on his "I'll just play louder" kick. But, you know, you get used to not hearing anything, and the beer's free, and by the second set people are dancing and the times they are good. Ger hated this tape. We tried again in April (which see).
Oh yeah- this was our first gig as Gene Pool, the fliers said "BIG WORDS"
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