We had jammed with Mike Farmer live many times to do Misfits encores and they were very popular with the crowd. We decided to actually rehearse and play a full set with him as a cover band. We did so at a place very far away in Aurora. It was a Battle of the Bands and there were about 10 bands so it was a very long show. To save time, they told us not to bring equipment. When we got there it was a little different though. They had told Rob not to bring drums, only cymbals. But he didn’t bring a high hat. No problem, someone was nice enough to borrow him one. Me and Hilger brought guitars only. But I guess that we were supposed to bring amp heads. Well, we play combo amps so we don’t have heads. The management was pissed but they found us something to use. It worked out nice since Hilger played out of like a 400 watt 8×8 cabinet and I had a nice Peavey 5150 half stack. I played my strat as my main guitar which I rarely do and I put 11’s on and it nearly broke my fucking arm. We planned to open with ‘Return of the Fly’ and we were going to start it and Farmer would walk out and sing in the nick of time. So we were in this little dressing room right before we were going to go on. Even now I still get a little nervous before the shows but Farmer hadn’t played in a while and he’ll probably deny this. We were putting black circles around our eyes with a lipstick and he was shaking like crazy. I offered to do it for him and he refused. The shit head sound guys refused to give us 2 backup vocal mics so we did with one but they put it on Hilger’s side. My cord was barely long enough for me to reach and it was stretched across the stage like a trip wire which Hilger had to jump over. On a similar note, did his usual jump into the floor and his cord was pulled so tight it almost pulled the amp over. Luckily, everything was all right. I remember being very depressed at this show after it was over and sitting outside during the other bands. Well I was later told that I missed the fun.
The other bands: Sans Everything was sans drums and they played 3 piece with a frontman and a drum machine and they almost won the damn show although they sucked. (which was based on crown applause at the end of the show — 4 hours after we had played and everyone of our fans had went home). The last band was called Quixotic like Don Quixote and they were total noise core and I’ll give them a prop although they were musically inept at their instruments. The only band who was cool personally was called Grady and they was all much older then use (around 29 or so) and had two guitars. Their frontman was cool and at one point he pulled out a mini tape player and put it to the mic and played to kind of a little girls voice talking and it was very sick and scary. Bonesaw opened with Tool’s ‘Sober’ and later played ‘Four Horseman’ by Metallica. They were heavy and pissed off. The band after us was called the Circus and I was outside when they played. Some shit went down I was later told.
The Circus plays blues rock and its very high energy. They are all right (coincidentally we later played with them at the Fireside and I’m still trying to figure out how they got a gig there). Their frontman was wearing cowboy boots, a T-shirt, flannel and fur lined jean jacket. On the hot stage this is insane and he sweat everywhere. He later told Rob that his inspiration is Iggy Pop and he would throw himself on the stage and get real crazy. He threw a chair and it almost hit one of the crazy headbangers in Bonesaw. It’s pretty much of a bad idea to fuck with these guys. They start yelling and in the end, security threw The Circus out which was about the only good decision they made all night. Also, I think that Bonesaw one the competition (which had a $100 prize). The Circus also made some stupid comments about us playing only covers and how we sucked but I definitely set the record straight at the Fireside (See that show for details).
