Show Date: July 11, 2009 - Dreamworld

We went out to Arlington to this music warehouse called Dreamworld Music Complex for what was to win the coveted prize of being our worst show ever.

The worst show I have ever played in my life.

A lot of technical difficulties with their monitors and Rick's gear cutting out, and most everyone was wasted. It was such a bummer because there is nothing more depressing than a bad show, especially when it's mostly your fault, and especially when you know that you're not living up to your potential. You only have one chance to make a first impression, not only to the people who are being exposed to your music for the first time but also to the venue, if you want them to have you back.

Here's a quick run down of just a few highlights.

During sound check everything seemed fine, but then when we started the song we couldn't hear each other. Gabe couldn't hear Rick in his monitors, Rick couldn't hear Gabe, Jason couldn't hear anybody and we got so off of each other we had to stop in the middle of a song.

Stopping in the middle of a song is like death.

If you have to stop in the middle of a song you have no business being on stage. None. And on top of that I was singing the song an octave higher than usual, it sounded horrible, no idea what I was thinking.

Then Rick had a problem with his gear and his guitar kept cutting out, so we go to play Villages and he can't get any sound out of it at all. We end up playing the song without guitar. Turns out that when I was jumping off the drum riser I kicked his amp plug out of socket, and it took him the whole song to figure out that it wasn't his rig, it was just that his amp was unplugged. I mean, looking back on it now I can laugh. But yeah, just terrible terrible.

A show like that has you ending up questioning life. I mean it wasn't all bad, we did still have our moments, but all in all, it was a disaster. But something positive always comes out of a negative experience and we did come up with a few ground rules to make sure stuff like that wouldn't go down again.

And Rick was getting his rig fixed.