Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

I'm exhausted.

Okay, I knew weeks ago that I'd be exhausted tonight. But still...

Afternoon gig with Thrir Venstri Foetr at Marching Through Time went okay. I got there a bit late due to an accident on I95 delaying me long enough for my car to overheat, but I was there in time to unload the car, nibble some food, and tune before we went on. Fewer musicians than I like to use, but good ones. (See recent QotD about silmaril.) Some glitchitude, but no Big Problems or fumbles. The biggest problems were that we took a little too long getting organized for the first set, sound does not carry very well at that site, and we didn't really have a good way to position ourselves so that we could face both the dancers and the audience (further complicated by the fact that we had audience on two sides, and most of them came to the side we didn't expect for the first set). Musically, we were fine. I got to give vvalkyri a birthday hug. Then, though I felt I desperately needed a nap (especially since I slept very poorly the night before), I went to the Greenbelt Arts Center (by way of an auto-parts place first for some coolant and a bottle of radiator stop-leak) to get ready for the Homespun Ceilidh Band gig. Most of the setup was done by the time I got there, but between retuning my guitars, getting out of my tunic and into my kilt, eating enough to not be distracted by hunger, and running through the duet I was going to play with John, I didn't get a nap. I did manage to remember to take my painkillers early enough that they'd started to take effect by the time I'd been playing long enough for my arms to hurt.

We seriously rocked. Two hours (with an intermission). We opened with a bang -- the "Nine Points of Roguery" set. I felt like I'd played better than usual. Other folks in the band who commented seemed to feel similarly about their own performances (except Jennifer, who felt she'd flubbed some dance steps in the first half -- Mike and I didn't think she'd messed up as badly as she thought, and even if she did, I think she made up for it in the second half). Someone who's seen every concert we've done there said it was our best. I guess the night with two members having parents in the audience was a good night for a really hot performance. We finished up with the "Jock Wilson's Ball" set, then came back to do "Cello Dude" as an encore.

At GAC we usually share the stage with Mac-Talla, which makes for somewhat awkward pacing. At weddings, we're sort of background much of the time. At festivals, we usually get a 45-minute set on a stage that has several acts scheduled throughout the day. (At the Anne Arundel Scottish Festival and Higland Games we play three sets, rotating with the Highland-Aires and Bonnie Rideout -- more playing time than we usually get at a festival, but broken up into discrete chunks.) This time we had a two hour concert to ourselves. Yeah, there was a break in the middle, but it was us again on the other side of the break. This gave us a chance to stretch our legs a bit, musically, and left us in control of the flow and pacing of the show. I like the two-hour concert format. I like it a lot. And I think it helped us.

But Mrs. Murphy (the one who applies Murphy's Law to entertainers, as immortalized in Trix' song, "Mrs. Murphy's Band" (which, yes, we did play at the concert)) was not absent. I broke three strings, which I think is a new personal record. Popped the high E on my six-string late in the first half, replaced it during the break; broke the octave-G on the 12-string early in the second half, replaced that while Bill and Becky played some duets (they perform under the name Peat and Barley) but didn't have time to get the instrument re-tuned; slowly got it tuned a couple strings at a time in between tunes, finally got set to play it near the end of the concert, and broke one of the high E strings on it in the first couple of measures. So I finished that set of tunes -- and the concert -- on the six-string. In the meantime, the grocery (Greenbelt Food Co-Op) upstairs started having problems with cooling equipment, and stuff started dripping into the theatre. So the route between the green room and the stage required dodging dripping water and dripping refrigerant. (Later, after we'd packed things up but wanted to chat instead of loading the cars, the leaks started falling in the green room itself, which became our cue to go home.)

Anyhow, I'm home. My pain meds have worn off. And I'm exhausted. No, that doesn't convey it ... I'm fucking exhausted. I have to replace that E string before I go to bed because I know I'm not going to remember to allocate myself enough time to do so in the morning, and I'm headed back to Marietta House for the second day of Marching Through Time. This time I'll try to get there early, and will wander around to the various encampments to photograph them, instead of just hanging out near the battlefield. Maybe I can find a cool way to shoot the deer skeleton Fred told me about.

I called my brother to ask whether he'd be around in the evening -- I'll head over there after Marching Through Time to see him and Mom. I'll be near Bowie and already wearing boy-clothes; this makes it a good time to stop by there. (I'd go over there more often if I didn't have to put on special clothes to do so.)

For some reason tonight seems to be Extra Special Way Too Loud Car Stereos Night here in Baltimore. Those are a problem in general, but there seem to be a lot more of them tonight than usual. And they're annoying all the way in the office, which is almost at the back of the house (the second floor goes, from street to alley: front bedroom, other bedroom + hall + front stair, office, back stair, bathroom ... so the office is a ways back from Lombard Street). And it's not just the Subwoofers Of Doom this time -- I'm hearing melodies, upper register and midrange stuff, at volumes that have got to be deafening in the cars. This is insane. (And there are folks sleeping in other houses on this block, dammit, as I will be as soon a I get the new E string on that guitar.)

All in all, a good, though terribly exhausting, day. I am one sweaty, exhausted guitarist. And I've scheduled the first half of the coming week for recovering from this weekend.

Now to see whether I've tried something too fancy to get away with using <lj-cut> tags for. I'm trying for "condensed versus expanded" versions of this entry with the flow basically working the same in both (as opposed to a list of cut tags like a table of contents, or an "insert separate set of thoughts here" effect. But when I'm this tired might not be the best time to experiment with a new approach. Or it might be the only time I'm likely to think of it.