Year 3 – Day 87 – June 3rd 2011 – Minneapolis Minnesota
Quicksand
First one thing goes wrong (no matter how minor) and that's all you need. The more you fight, the more you sink until you can't breathe. You're drowning and there's no hope in getting out. It happens to the best of us, so it certainly happens to me.
My guitar stopped working properly in Des Moines, I hit the string and it pops out of place. I was worried about it all day long making me more nervous in terms of today's show.
Often Minneapolis is the peak of our Midwestern Tours. I work with a guy that knows what he's doing in terms of getting us with the right bands and promoting us, and it is by far our biggest fanbase outside of Philadelphia. Believers are hard to come by so we try to see them all as often as possible. We build these midwestern tours around the Minneapolis shows because we know we're gonna be taken care of, the scene here has really opened it's arms to us and often it feels like a second home. I always want very badly to give these people the best show they've ever seen but tonight my entire focus was on the situation with my guitar. I thought I'd dodged a bullet and that I would simply use my back up, but as I was tuning it it clearly refused to stay in tune so we had to use the busted one.
I needed to get my head in the game, it's easy to perform when everything's going perfectly but the challenge is can you still be the guy that you are when shit's goin horribly wrong. I decided to view it as a challenge to see if I could step up to the plate.
I focused on what I did have, my voice wasn't broken, nor my playing, and not to mention I have the very best rhythm section on the planet that can carry me if need be.
Set List
Batman Theme
Superhero
God May Forgive You But I Never Will
Ex Girlfriend
New/Untitled Song
Surrender
Sexy Machine
I Don't Dance
Feels So Good
(I Think We Should) Breakup
Psycho
It was hard to tell how or if we went over well. The stage lights shined pretty far down in my face and it was hard to see. The Boys played great (As Always) and I just popped my string back in place whenever it fell out. After a while you just have to laugh it off because you simply can't control the problem or make it go away at that point in time. As always I had a blast.
The highlight of the night was of course seeing all of our friends and fans in the twin cities. I didn't feel like I personally gave them the best show possible but the love I get washes that feeling away if only for a night. The other thing that's always been an issue for me is grace after a less than perfect performance. A lot of people shook my hand and said “Good Show” because to them it probably was. My instinct is to say something like “Were we at the same show, I was awful” but if someone compliments you, you say Thank You, you mean it, and you save the self criticisms for another time, possibly a tour blog.
We hung out with 3 of my fav people for the rest of the night and we went back to the hotel. The tour marches on to Chicago tomorrow, we'll play the tonic room and get some Giordanos. There's a guitar center by the venue, maybe I can get my stuff fixed.
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