A show at the mall

After all this recording, it was great to get out and play our first show since Halloween. Last night's was interesting because we played in the middle of an outdoor mall in Irvine, CA. What was great about it is that it was an opportunity to play for a bunch of random people who have never heard us before.

Overall I think the show went really well, despite the fact that there were no monitors on stage so it was really our best guess if we were playing anything together for most of the songs. The thing that really stuck out to me was the temperature; the guy who was organizing the show asked us if we wanted cups of hot water to warm our hands in between songs because it was going to get cold. "Nah," I said, "my fingers will move so fast it will create enough friction to keep my hands warm and probably even risk setting my fretboard on fire."

Hilariously clever as that was, it turned out that I'm an idiot (not the first time that's happened). The temperature was only in the 50s, but as soon as I launched into my first solo of the night (in "All Of This") I came to the unpleasant realization that I could not feel my fingertips. Whoops. As it turns out, that makes it really hard to play a competent-sounding guitar solo. So hard, in fact, that I didn't. It sounded far from competent in fact. It was sort of embarrassing.

Luckily I got warmed up pretty soon after and the rest of my solos sounded just fine. But I learned my lesson. Oh and my nose was running the whole night. The lessons we learn from playing outside are abundant and lifelong.