#comet tavern

Apparently, the jackasses at the garage pried off the center panel in the van's interior, instead of just unscrewing it.  Thanks, guys.  And, while that is kind of fucked, the van is running and functional (as far as we know), so it's not as if we have to cancel dates and spend the next two weeks on vacation watching cartoons in our respective apartments.  We've got the tow kit installed, so we can haul a trailer... though our missing passenger-side mirror is still missing, so merging right while traversing the freeways is going to be a wonderful adventure.

With the van in the shop, there was a real concern that it wouldn't be ready-- since we practice right around the corner from The Comet, we can (and have, if needed) just walk our gear over to the venue.  It's not ideal, but it's doable.  I'd prefer that idiots with pry bars didn't cause The van is fucked messages at all, but I am relieved that it's an instrument panel and not the engine that inspires them.

On with the show-- our kickoff coincided with ChoiceFest's first day, so Ladies Choice Productions set us up with a really cool line-up (thanks, Adam!), and the opener, Princess, shares members with the band that sort of discovered ubik... which is to say, it was really good to see Andrew again.  I even wore my Keeper shirt (the “Obey the Wizard” one-- I wear it to work when I can, because no one argues with you when you have the word OBEY printed across you in big, block letters).

It seemed like everyone suffered from technical difficulties: Princess borrowed a Kinski guitar (the guitar went dead), Kinski borrowed one of my cables (the guitar went dead), and we... well, Joel's cabinet caught fire again.  This was meant to be the triumphant return of Joel's Ampeg 8x10, which burst into flames on Christmas 2010, and had to be drug outside as we pulled hunks of flaming insulation out of the cabinet.  Since then, it's gotten eight new speakers, it's been rewired, and given a flash new paint job.

In the middle of the third song, I smelled smoke, and there was no low end.  We finished the set with Kinski's bass cab... we really owe them for that.  We'd have been cut short after two songs if Kinski didn't bail us out.  From there on, the show went off without a hitch; it was a good show, good crowd, good night all in all.