Wussy Visits NYC

I think I’ve written it before but if you can’t get excited for a show in New York then you’re probably dead inside (like Ghengis Khan). We were playing the Webster Hall Studio for the second time and load-in was 4:30, which for the slow moving barge that is Wussy in motion, meant we had to hot foot it. The Webster is an interesting place in that it’s three different performance spaces. The same night as us was a sold out show by Space Ghost or some band with the word ghost in their name. The other space had a burlesque show going on. There’s an unusually high  number of black jacketed security people with Secret Service ear pieces walking around and clogging up the lines to the urinals, and door people who yell at you for going in the door you loaded in to but now that’s not the door you go in.

            The last time we played there we fell in love with David, the man running sound, and requested him again. He’s the greatest and says things like, “It’s nice to get to mix a real rock band.” And his wife came to the show and said he’d been talking about our band the whole year since last we played there. That’s about as high praise as you can get. It was also exciting because we’d pre-sold more tickets than we ever had. We were done sound checking around 5:30, which begs the question, how was this different from the previous night in Phili? Well, part of it is that we had a plan. A friend of the band was treating us to an amazing dinner (Best gnocchi I’d ever had by a mile, gorgonzola cream sauce with walnuts and caramelized onions, served by dark haired young men who conversed only in Italian – meow.) and the other reason was Rene’ swung her brass balls and got the little room to the side of the stage just for us. The last time all four bands were in there, some of our gear went missing, and it was chaos. See? Little by little we’re becoming assholes. It was so nice to have a place to go though. Of course the Strand bookstore is about a block away. Go there. It’s a holy place. I got an out of print copy of a collection of Roger Tory Peterson’s art and photos that had been signed. By him. Not Kevin.

            And then there was the show. We had 227 (“There’s No Place Like Home” – Sing it!) people pay to see us (they ask at the door who you’re there to see and then pay the bands according to that number) in a place that only holds 300.  They come right up to the stage, sing along, and make you want to be as good as The Who circa 1971.We roared to the best of our ability, said many silly things from stage, and had the time of our lives. I told my son about it when he called the next morning, and even though he’s only 11 he said, “make sure you remember that one.”

            I ran in the rain while the van idled in front of a fire hydrant to get our traditional post show cheese pizza and called it a night. Yay!