When the line of beefy guys in black SECURITY T-shirts passed where I stood at the bar, not hurrying but by no means dallying either, I knew exactly where they were going.
I watched them file toward the center of what in a different kind of bar might be a dance floor and surround the table where Joey N. stood with his Jack and Coke. There was no immediate shouting, pushing or fist-flailing, so I slammed my beer before striding over and interspersing myself between our band's bass player and the five or six dudes who could've made a fairly impressive offensive line.
It had been a pretty good night, up until then.
In a lot of ways, playing one-off shows near your hometown is more treacherous than being on tour. You haven't been out of your element long enough to make being careful second nature. You're pretty sure that whatever happens, you'll find a place to crash and a ride home in the morning. There's no plan, not to the extent of the ingrained on-tour behavioral protocols. There's none of the us-against-the-world mentality that builds up over a week in a van — band members come in different cars, and they know enough people in the room to feel like they're at home.
To us, going to Bradenton to play a rock bar where our buddy B.B. works as a booking agent wasn't any different from going down the street to play the Emerald. It just cost two dollars more, on account of the Skyway.
B.B. had booked three bands from out of town, and this was our first show down there. We knew there wasn't going to be a big crowd, and when we know there isn't going to be a big crowd, we skew toward self-indulgence.
The first shots went down as the first band, a great pop-rock outfit from Hudson called Tenspoke Indies, went on. The bartender poured them perilously deep. By the time we started setting up our amplifiers on the roomy stage, Joey N. and I were much more interested in amusing ourselves than playing a professional, pitch-perfect set.
Hey, sometimes it happens like that. It's rock 'n' roll, not kabuki theater.
Tenspoke Indies had been heavy and extroverted enough to keep the small throng of metal-loving employees and regulars interested. We weren't. So we just had a good time with it. Long, rambling vines of inside-joke-laden banter and prodigious beer-drinking separated the songs. I hit several bum notes. We fired Joey N., again, somewhere in the middle of the show. Ed's drum pedal flew apart during the final tune. It wasn't a bad set, all in all, but we never formed any real connection with the small audience, and instead went to town trying to crack each other up — if nobody else was going to enjoy it, we sure as hell were.
More frighteningly substantial shots were poured as the final band, Lakeland's Woodale, set up shop. Bradenton Herald (and former Weekly Planet) writer Wade "Baby Springsteen" Tatangelo offered us floor space for the night. I went outside to call Becks and discovered that the next-door dance club's Hip-Hop Night was apparently an insanely popular attraction; a hundred kids in all manner of mall-gangsta attire loitered under the watchful eyes of half a dozen uniformed police officers.
I'd been back in the bar a couple of minutes when, in the lull between songs by Woodale, Joey N. announced at the top of his lungs that B.B. had been fired. He went on to say some creatively derogatory things about the club's management and suggested to the handful of customers left in attendance that arson might qualify as an appropriate reprisal.
So yeah, when the bouncer chorus line went by me a few beats later, I had a pretty good idea what was happening.
When B.B. and I got to the table, Joey N. was asking the security force why they thought it necessary to assemble en masse over a few shouted opinions. The security force — half of them reasonable and just doing their jobs, the other half revved up and already spoiling for a brawl — wasn't particularly interested in pointing out the relevant chapters in their procedures manual. They were interested in making very sure Joey N. was very intimidated.
Joey N., an Irishman whose enormous heart is balanced out by his extremely large fists, wasn't.
It was very, very close.
Eventually we arrived at a compromise: No one would get pummeled … yet. It was strongly suggested that we vacate the premises at our earliest convenience, advice that guitarist Mark B. and I immediately took to heart by loading all of our gear through the bar's rear door in about 14 seconds. Our entire group and B.B. then retired outside for homemade tacos from an adjacent RV, standing around nervously watching the cops watching us nervously (Joey N. hit on one of the female officers around a mouthful of taco), and crashing on B.B.'s couches and floor after waking up his wife with our shenanigans.
I think I'll call the bar this week, mention the name of my band, and ask when we can get back in there for another gig.
This article appears in Sep 13-19, 2006.