This is what usually happens when...

you are in a local band and you play a show.

I really love being in a local band, and I love playing shows, but there are certain aspects of playing live locally that never change. This is how the night usually goes:

1. Assuming the show starts at night and there are three bands total, you show up sometime around 9, figuring that you won't be too early or late. What then happens is that you're either to go on in the next 5 minutes and the promoters/sound guy/other bands are grumpy with you, or, you find out that the show isn't starting until 10:30, and you could have stayed in your friend's Celica, taking shots of root-beer schnapps, but instead, you'll sit at the bar and slowly get too drunk to play well.

2. If you know the other bands and have met or played with them before, you joke around and generally have a good time. But, if they're a local band you've never heard of, there's a battle-of-the-bands mentality that happens. Usually, one band tries to out-cool the other band, and there will be a lot of passive-aggressive things said, such as, "Hey man, we've never heard of you. How long have you guys been playing? Ever thought about adding a ____-ist? Thanks for opening up for us! I remember when we weren't that good!"

3. If there are drink specials, you drink too much before you play. If there are no drink specials for the bands, then you're bitter, and you begrudgingly buy the drinks and drink too much anyway.

4. There's this weird little dance of "who wants to play when?" Really, just about everyone at an all-local-band show wants to play second, because that's when the most people are there, and it's not too early or too late. But someone's going to have to play first and last, and that someone is going to be bummed out. If you're first, people are still filing in. If you're last, you're tired and probably too drunk. This is no band's fault; it's just the way it goes.

5. The sound guy is usually very friendly and awesome, but sometimes, they are weird and sketchy. They'll walk around, slowly setting up microphones, and giving everyone in the band hate-looks. If you ask them a question like "Hey, is it cool if you do ____ during our set?", he'll say "fine" really quietly, and then forget all about it, and then you feel like an asshole bothering him again later about it. Also, when you ask him to do something that a sound guy is supposed to do, he'll sigh real loud and mutter under his breath, as if he's doing sound as a result of losing a bet or that he's doing community service or something.

6. During this whole time, you realize that your friends are nowhere to be seen and you still don't have a crowd, so you desperately try to call/text them during sound-check to let them know that "hey dude we r starting soon hope to c u here!" After all, if they show up a half-hour late, they've missed the bulk of your set.

7. If you rock, no one's there. If there are a thousand people there, you forget how to stand and talk. No matter what, your on-stage jokes probably suck, and if the jokes are actually funny, no one laughs.

8. Someone, SOMEONE, always yells "Freebird!", and it is never funny. Well, it's kind of funny, but just because it's not funny at all. But you would never concede this point.

9. After you're done, the sound guy and the other band will come up to you and say something like "good set; that was really tight", or "hey, I really liked that last song." Sometimes, they are totally sincere, and most of the time, they secretly wish you had never picked up a guitar.

10. After loading up your stuff, you and your bandmates fight over who has to go ask the weird stoic club-promoters for money. When the loser of the argument eventually asks for the money, the club-promoter makes a face that says, "Fuck you for asking me that."

11. You get the rest of the way drunk, watch the other bands and if they are good, you'll have a good time. But if they suck and/or the are rude and stupid, you'll talk shit about them on the way to Village Inn.