Ways not to impress audience members at your Turf Club show

I saw a band last night from Baltimore. They weren’t that good, but that is not my point.

I don’t know if it was the Turf Club’s fault or this band, but I walked in at 10 p.m. and watched them setting up their equipment. I wondered if it was the second band setting up. No. It was the first band just getting around to setting up at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday night.

They went through a pretty drawn out sound check. These guys are on tour, I know they have sound checked before, so I don’t know why they just seemed so confused about the whole process. It took them a half hour to finish saying, ‘OK. A little more vocals if you can… If you could give me more vocals that would be nice, but if you can’t that’s OK. Alright, a little less vocals now.”

Obviously exhausted from that grueling sound check experience the band sat at a table in front and smoked cigarettes for the next half hour. Finally, at 11 they start playing. I won’t go into the performance, I didn’t care for it, but they would have had to jump through burning hoops of fire to impress me at that point.

So, here is the kicker to the whole story: They are off the stage by 11:25.

Here is the final score:
Sound check: 30 minutes
Performance: 25 minutes