The Cincinnati show went better than my pessimistic presumptions predicted it would. As I mentioned before, I've played the Holy Grail Downunder several times before and each time it was to a sparse crowd. That place just doesn't have a built-in crowd like the Union, Casa and The Gator. Honestly, the Gator didn't have that much of a built in crowd before, but in the last year or so that has been changing thanks to their increased inclusion of local acts on their bills. Even though the show went well, there were still SIX bands on the bill, so the cut for each band was enough to cover gas and one meal. The rest of our finances were subsidized by us. Here is the breakdown.

A taxi cab scraped the side of Felix's truck at the Ravari Room in Columbus. Pricetag: $800 in repairs. Jodi, Kenny and I spent approximately $110 combined on food, gas and beer during the whole three day tour thanks to the generous bar tabs coverage by the Casa Cantina and the Ravari Room. The 'Grail only takes a dollar off each drink. Felix paid for his own gas. Being that he own's a truck, I'm guessing $60 in gas for the weekend. I don't know how much he drank or ate. Lets say $30 since he got free drinks in Athens and Columbus. We made $150 total from all three shows, plus we sold a bunch of our CD's so that put us to around $225 in sales and door money. Without the fee for repairing Felix's ride, our costs were $240. We made $225. So it was a net loss of $15. Not bad. Although I'd like to actually make money at making music some day.

Jodi had a nasal infection the whole time. Felix had a heart condition. Last night, my comeuppance occurred. I think I strained my left knee or semi-dislocated it or something while carrying my speaker cabinet up the stairs at the Holy Grail. It hurt all night and today it still hurts to walk on it. You know how the bad guys always threaten to shoot a guy in the knee-caps in gangster movies? They say it hurts like hell. Well, I can imagine that's the truth. I had a hard time getting out of bed last night because of it. I had to slowly move my leg back and forth to "warm it up" before I could walk on it. It feels like it came out of the joint or something. It does feel a lot better right now, but I can tell, one bump and it will start acting up again.

'Cept for my knee, last night was a lot of fun. I finally got to hang out with Stephanie's Id. It turns out they aren't snooty at all. They were just legitimately tired from touring. They stuck around most of the night last night and talked to all the other bands. Their performance was stellar and they evidently brought in quite a few people just to see them. By quite a few, I mean possibly 25 or so. After seeing them live for three days and listening to their CD. I can honestly say that their live performance is much more energetic, while their CD is much more laid back. Even Jess from the 'Vulvas said, "You know, these guys have really grown on me." They have universal appeal. I told them to get a hold of me the next time they plan on coming through Athens. They should definitely play with Fokushima at Casa and one more local band with draw. Not necesarrily Red Dahlia although I wouldn't mind.

The sound at the venue was exceptional. It was just as good if not better than the sound at Casa, and I love Casa's sound system. Plus, the soundman knew what he was doing. After the show, he said Red Dahlia's guitars were a little loud, so he just took them out of the mains and focused on Jodi's keyboard and vocals. After he said that to me, I was like "GOD BLESS YOU! Why don't more soundmen do that!?! Why do they try to put everything through the mains in a small venue?" He agreed with me that it isn't always necessary. He also added effects to the voices of the lead singers by expertly adding reverb and delay at key moments in songs. He did it for all the bands. Unfortunately, I couldn't hear what he was doing to Jodi through the monitors. Reverb + stage monitor = feedback loop nearly every time, so I understood why he left it out of the monitor mix.

As predicted, the first and last bands got completely shafted on the crowd. I felt bad for 333, but the people that saw them loved them. They were supposedly really tired from celebrating Rob's birthday at Casa the night before. Rob is the guitar player. However, Joel the bassist and Jeremy their drummer were ON FIRE. You can tell a band is really professional when they give it their all no matter how many people are playing. Kenny thought that Joel was having convulsions on stage. He was bobbing his head up and down with a lit cigarette in his mouth so furiously, that the cherry would fall out, at which point he would grab another cigarette and keep going. Jeremy took full advantage of the large five-piece Mapex drum kit complete with double-bass pedals and two floor toms. It was an amazing site to see him work the kit. On the drive down to Cincinnati, Jodi, Kenny and I were listening to a Faith No More disk that Kenny brought along. Upon listening to the disk we came to the conclusion that Jeremy's drumming style is very similar to that of Faith No More's drummer. The other day Matt Harvey was telling me that he loves 333 but he has a hard time describing them to people. So when people ask what 333 sounds like. Say Faith No More's backup band with deep legato female lead vocals. I have to work on a better description for the vocal part of their equation. There is one song in particular from Faith No More's 1995 release King For A Day... Fool For A Lifetime that could have come straight from Jeremy. It's called "Ugly in the Morning." Listen to the drums. That's Jeremy's style.

We all had a fun time hanging out with the ladies of Loaded Revulva. At one point they were playing "Bag tag" with Felix. For those of you not in the third grade, "bag tag" involves sneaking up on someone and punching them as hard as you can in the crotch why yelling "BAG TAG!" Then you run for your life. Since the ladies of Revulva aren't properly equipped, they had a distinct advantage. However Jodi assured me that if you hit a lady hard enough in the crotch, it will hurt too. For a research reference, watch the rooftop climax scene of "So I Married an Axe Murderer."

All in all, it was a fun time, and I'm thoroughly exhausted. I'm looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight. Unfortunately I have school tomorrow, and I have a lot of website design work to catch up on. I'll be a tired monkey for at least a few days. I also don't want to look at a bar or smell a cigarette for at least a week.