One night Elmer dropped by to inform us that we had a gig. Some young girl he knew was having a birthday party and invited us to play. We agreed to do it, but thought it was worth $20. He said that would be ok. We had only a couple of practices to get ready, so the band went to work. The party was scheduled for Friday night, and the only reason CEP was able to perform was because the football team had an open date. Everything fell right into place.
It took only two cars to haul the band and equipment to the gig. Actually, transportation could have been managed in a single vehicle because nearly all cars were huge in the late 60’s. I had not been out and about too often in the wilds of Monroe County, so I really have no idea where the engagement took place, though I believe it was in the midst of a great sea of farmland in western Vonore (possibly in the Lakeside Community). I don’t remember seeing any houses near the one we played, which was an older style of house, probably built in the late 30’s or early 40’s, like I had seen on other farms (many of them still exist today). I guess we were a little late because night had already come on and the party seemed to be in full swing when we pulled in.
The kids attending the party were closer in age to CEP and me than the other guys. The idea that any of us might get laid (the real reason I started with music in the first place) did not cross my mind. The excitement of getting to play to other humans was overwhelming in itself. I’m sure we checked out the chicks, but mostly stuck to the tasks of setting up. In some ways I envy the simplicity of the band’s rig because all we needed was one electrical extension cord with two female outlets to power the entire show.
Our stage was a narrow porch, and we had to squeeze into about half that space to allow folks to get into and out of the house, so people nearly brushed KK whenever they passed, and since they were kids they passed a lot. I didn’t realize it at the time but this was my first lesson about stages, meaning that some of those I played on over the years were no bigger or better than that porch. There were no fancy lights, in fact, there was but a single naked bulb shining from an overhead outlet. The entire scene was very Spartan, but I was happy to be there.
We were anxious and didn’t waste any time. As soon as the equipment was fixed and powered, we launched right in. From there the experience becomes kinda fuzzy because the excitement of playing kind of dominated my sensibility. I remember, though not specifically, quickly learning to cover a bum note or phrase. I watched Billy D a lot. He was a master compared to the rest of us, and he was the calming reassurance that I needed to keep me in line. He knew then what I didn’t learn until later, which was that a band could play a song totally wrong, or even mess up a goodly amount of it, and, as long as the music continued, few people really noticed. Of us, only Billy D knew that the people listening most closely to the music are those playing it. Everyone else is talking, dancing, or playing spin the bottle.
After hacking our way through a set, we took a break. The break is very important because it allows contact with the outside (non band members) world. One reason for the break was for the birthday girl to blow out the candles on her cake. I went into the house seeking Elmer. He had cornered a woman who looked to be about the age of my grandmother. She seemed very nice and invited the band to have a piece of cake. I don’t remember eating any cake, but who knows? I reminded Elmer about the $20, and he went straight for the nice woman. That made me feel a little embarrassed because the household didn’t seem like it could withstand the fee. Now, I don’t want to get into a who was poorer contest since so many of the well to do in Madisonville seem to go out of their ways to not appear rich, while at the same time bemoaning their expenses or how they merely scrape by, but my family was not well off. However, to me at least, my family appeared to be better off than the inhabitants of that country place.
Without another word the band went back to work. We must have been getting tired because mistakes began to pile up, not to the point of disaster, but definitely noticeable to us. Again, no one else seemed to care. I really began to feel bad about asking money for the product. The only selling point was that everyone in the band was giving maximal effort, and why not? Comon, I didn’t know shit from shinola. I thought it possible that the band might be discovered even at such an inauspicious occasion as that young girl’s party. How totally naïve I was—an amoeba in a drop of experienced water.
The party was beginning to break up before the second set was over. As the equipment was being dismantled and loaded, Elmer slipped each one of us a fiver, the $20 we had requested. What if he hadn’t? What could we have done about it? I guess the band members might have felt a little duped, but we would not have had the experience of playing live without that party. Other than a little gas money for Billy D, we could have lived with nothing. I found out later that Elmer had actually sprung for the $20.
I rode back to Madisonville with Billy D and KK. We stopped at a drive-in, a very popular young person hangout on weekends (then as now, there was really nothing for youth to do but hang out), and we stopped for some of its tasty treats before calling it a night. In the car a couple of spaces over from us three guys in a car seemed to spontaneously crack-up with laughter. “We should fake doing the same thing,” KK said. “Crack-up on three,” he said. He counted, we cracked. At first our laughter was faked, but the zeal which we had thrown into the performance really made us bust up. We were still giggling when our treats came.
Overall I guess I felt pretty good when I got home. I told my parents all about it, then repeated the story to my grandmother (I usually stayed overnight at her place on the weekends). Before bed I watched television a little while and read some of a Scholastic book entitled 101 Elephant Jokes I’d bought at school. My spinning head continued to spin for a couple of days.
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