So, Dimensional Riffs had our first gig on Saturday night, over at TASTE at Infusion, a neat little restaurant/bar/nightclub nestled in among the warehouses and craft breweries of Scott’s Addition. We played the small room, with a tiny little stage, opening up for Jester’s Ink, the local improv troupe seemingly inextricably melded to every member of the band but me through domestic partnerships and mutual participation.

It was a short set, around 30 minutes, but for a first gig for a group that’s only been playing all together for a handful of weeks, it….wasn’t bad. Here’s a photo, grabbed from one of the videos somebody took, with arrow added helpfully to identify me as the disembodied Fender headstock behind the PA speaker stage left (I’m kind of stuffed in the corner, because the stage was small, and I wasn’t only playing bass and guitar, but also tweaking sound as necessary, and the board was stuck back there). I’m not worried; the girls are prettier than me anyway.

The mantra going in was “it won’t be perfect, but it’ll be fun”, and yeah, I think it was (not perfect by a longshot, but fun). The room seemed to enjoy it; at least as much as any crowd there for Monte Cristo sandwiches and comedy would enjoy a nascient rock band. I had a couple of friends in the audience who came quite a long way to see us play just a couple of tunes in a tiny room, which was really much appreciated.

This gig was, in my mind anyway, the “put up or shut up” mile marker for this project; the line-up and concept haven’t completely firmed up yet, and this experience, and it’s immediate aftermath, will hopefully settle some of that uncertainty out. We’ve got another show lined up later this month, where we’ll have to have more than half-a-dozen songs in the can; I think we can manage it, assuming the settling out happens soon, and the little bits of drama* we’ve dealt with get wrapped up quickly and we can focus on getting the material together.

Anyway…if you’re curious, there’s a couple of videos out there (check the first link in the first paragraph) for satisfying your cravings.

Otherwise, the weekend involved the girls kicking the ass of the US Open in DC, and god help me, Pokemon Go, the only thing that managed to bring America together after a week that was full of upleasant shit and division. Capturing little cartoon monsters out in the sunshine was exactly what people needed; if only the servers were able to keep up.

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* – yeah, there’s been a little drama about people showing up to rehearsals and stuff, which is to be expected to a certain extent. Just makes me appreciate how great a situation I’ve got with the Humdingers, who are nothing if not professional when we need to be. Thanks guys.