Which brings me to the House of Blues in Anaheim, California. My band at the time had recently recorded the first real EP of our tenure as musicians, being extremely fortunate to garner the talents of super producer Erik Ron, who in a matter of a few weeks had blown our minds in his recording studio and changed the course of our musical journey together. So, with EP in hand we wanted nothing more than to blow the doors off of the music scene in our area, and the opportunity to perform at the HOB couldn’t have come at a better time. A perfect storm of hope. We put our every effort into promoting and spreading the word about this one show. The kicker of the entire experience was that we didn’t really receive any feedback regarding whether or not anyone would show up or not; it was unnerving to say the least.

The night of the performance we arrived at the call time, which was around three hours prior to doors opening, so of course we still had no idea what to expect. It was a local band’s show with a semi-popular headlining band, and the promoter (who had become a friend of ours due to previous experience at shows) asked us to do him a favor and open this show, as he would make it up to us later with a better slot on subsequent shows. Typically, opening a local band's show is the kiss of death, at least in Southern California; in the spirit of good faith and courtesy we obliged, but that sinking feeling of playing to an empty room definitely crept in to our minds. Regardless, we were there to have fun and do whatever it would take to enjoy ourselves and rock the new material. We set up, performed a sound check, and waited.