I'm
MCing at the Comic's Lounge tonight for the Young Guns show, I guess
it's a kind of important gig because if I can get people watching
then I'll hopefully be able to book a spot on a Monday or Wednesday
night there, and move into some of the weekday/weekend gigs. I'm a
little nervous about it, although nowhere near as nervous as I was
for my last Spleen gig, but apparently still pretty nervous, because
the whole thing just played out in my dream.
It was showtime and there weren't very many people there, maybe twenty or so, which is a pretty tiny crowd for the Lounge, even on Tuesday, but the show started anyway. It started with Brad Oakes giving me a very poor intro from the stage, and then me running from my spot at a table (why wasn't I ready backstage?) to behind the curtain, and then having to push through the curtains which had been stapled shut. I got out and my opening line was “that was done on purpose”, which got a bit of a laugh. Then I noticed that about six or seven kids in the front row were wearing purple shirts, and so I guessed correctly that they had come from school... they were so close to the front they literally had their chins resting on the stage. So now about a third of my audience were school kids, and they were WAY TOO CLOSE to the stage. The gig was not going well.
I went into my opening gear and it was going all right – not great, but all right – but the audience were moving around a lot, this should have been an indication to me that it was a dream. At one moment they were ten metres back from the stage, the next they were all crammed in on two tables to the far left with no other furniture in the whole massive room, then they were all lined up together with the school kids right next to the stage so that the only way I could make eye contact with them was to hang off the side of the stage and do my bits there. I was leading up to the main punchline of my opening 3min chunk when a bigger-than-expected clap of approval swept through the crowd and I turned around to see Brad Oakes standing on stage, introducing the first act. Apparently I had gone over time and the show needed to be kept moving. I was blowing it. HARD.
When I got back on stage to introduce the second and third acts it seemed as if the sound guy was trying to edge me out of my role by introducing them over the PA instead, also I didn't have a list of who was on, and the only act that I got to the mic in time to introduce ended up being different to what I had written down on my sheet, so that was fucked too. I went to the sound guy to get the running order, and while I was there another act came on without me. Then I lost the run sheet as soon as I had it, then I went back on stage pointlessly and saw the crowd had about quadrupled because a teen song-and-dance act were taking to the stage to close the first bracket and they had brought heaps of friends. They were singing weird harmonies and were very good. Something like Step Up meets X Factor, only people didn't hate it and throw fruit.
Brad Oakes left through the back door which led to conspicuously more steps than it actually does (clue. IT'S A DREAM DUDE!), and when the break came at the end of the first bracket, the lights went out and no one was left in the room. My dream ended about here, as I was resolving to do a better job with more material in the second bracket. I didn't even get a chance to redeem myself.
So yeah, that was my dream. Pretty shit, I know the gig's not going to go like that tonight... to be honest, MCing is pretty easy because even if you go a little poorly at the start, you get about fifteen chances to redeem yourself; one in between every act. It's going to be fine, as long as I get a good chunk of solid material in – I'll probably aim for the 7-8mins at the start of the second bracket – then I'll have something to point to when I talk to the guys that make the decisions about Monday/Wednesday spots and say, “that's what I'll do, now put me on motherfucker.”
Comedy huh... it's really really fun.
Peace, Taco.
It was showtime and there weren't very many people there, maybe twenty or so, which is a pretty tiny crowd for the Lounge, even on Tuesday, but the show started anyway. It started with Brad Oakes giving me a very poor intro from the stage, and then me running from my spot at a table (why wasn't I ready backstage?) to behind the curtain, and then having to push through the curtains which had been stapled shut. I got out and my opening line was “that was done on purpose”, which got a bit of a laugh. Then I noticed that about six or seven kids in the front row were wearing purple shirts, and so I guessed correctly that they had come from school... they were so close to the front they literally had their chins resting on the stage. So now about a third of my audience were school kids, and they were WAY TOO CLOSE to the stage. The gig was not going well.
I went into my opening gear and it was going all right – not great, but all right – but the audience were moving around a lot, this should have been an indication to me that it was a dream. At one moment they were ten metres back from the stage, the next they were all crammed in on two tables to the far left with no other furniture in the whole massive room, then they were all lined up together with the school kids right next to the stage so that the only way I could make eye contact with them was to hang off the side of the stage and do my bits there. I was leading up to the main punchline of my opening 3min chunk when a bigger-than-expected clap of approval swept through the crowd and I turned around to see Brad Oakes standing on stage, introducing the first act. Apparently I had gone over time and the show needed to be kept moving. I was blowing it. HARD.
When I got back on stage to introduce the second and third acts it seemed as if the sound guy was trying to edge me out of my role by introducing them over the PA instead, also I didn't have a list of who was on, and the only act that I got to the mic in time to introduce ended up being different to what I had written down on my sheet, so that was fucked too. I went to the sound guy to get the running order, and while I was there another act came on without me. Then I lost the run sheet as soon as I had it, then I went back on stage pointlessly and saw the crowd had about quadrupled because a teen song-and-dance act were taking to the stage to close the first bracket and they had brought heaps of friends. They were singing weird harmonies and were very good. Something like Step Up meets X Factor, only people didn't hate it and throw fruit.
Brad Oakes left through the back door which led to conspicuously more steps than it actually does (clue. IT'S A DREAM DUDE!), and when the break came at the end of the first bracket, the lights went out and no one was left in the room. My dream ended about here, as I was resolving to do a better job with more material in the second bracket. I didn't even get a chance to redeem myself.
So yeah, that was my dream. Pretty shit, I know the gig's not going to go like that tonight... to be honest, MCing is pretty easy because even if you go a little poorly at the start, you get about fifteen chances to redeem yourself; one in between every act. It's going to be fine, as long as I get a good chunk of solid material in – I'll probably aim for the 7-8mins at the start of the second bracket – then I'll have something to point to when I talk to the guys that make the decisions about Monday/Wednesday spots and say, “that's what I'll do, now put me on motherfucker.”
Comedy huh... it's really really fun.
Peace, Taco.
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