Last night I had two gigs with two bands in two venues. Beyond that, it was sort of a crazy full-moon night in many ways. But my favorite moment of the whole evening occurred when I was trying to load into the second gig, in a party room in the Uptown Theater.

As it happens, last night was Metal Wars at the Uptown—like 20-some local hard-core bands playing both on the main stage of the Uptown and in a smaller room accessed through the same door as I needed to get in. There were lots of people standing around on the sidewalk, and inside the door were a couple drumkits in stages of disassembly and some amps and footboards.

I was in a hurry. It was about 10:30 by this point and Hidden Pictures was supposed to play at 11:00. It takes me 15–20 minutes to set up my kit and I needed to re-park my car after loading in, so there wasn’t time to screw around.

Unfortunately, a large SUV was in the parking space reserved for loadin/loadout. It had some equipment in it, but the woman who owned it didn’t appear to be a musician. She was talking to friends and in no hurry to leave. The curb right there was recessed from the street, so I pulled in as close as I could, leaving the tail end of my car sticking into the right lane of traffic on Broadway. The guy who had been putting equipment in the SUV said apologetically that he couldn’t get the woman to leave.

So I just started pulling out my equipment and piling it on the curb. Then I pulled out the hardware case, a remnant of my touring days. It has heavy duty casters and still has “RAINMAKERS” and a case number stenciled on it (I’ve never bothered to try to paint over it or anything). I’ve got a system where I can stack all my equipment on the case and roll it into the venue in one fell swoop, which is great, at least for venues with no stairs.*

The guy saw the road case and said skeptically, “The Rainmakers aren’t playing here tonight. Bob’s a friend of mine and I know they’re not playing here tonight.” No shit, Sherlock. And Bob’s a friend of mine, too. And why would the Rainmakers play at Metal Wars? Not only were we not a metal band, but this event is for the most local of local bands (I’m being as charitable as I can here). But I didn’t say anything, just kept stacking my drum and cymbal cases on the rolling case. As I was starting to wheel the case to the door, he stepped in front of me and repeated, “Bob’s a friend of mine. The Rainmakers aren’t playing here tonight.”

For some reason that just cracks me up. Not only did he not recognize me from the band, apparently he thought I was some wannabe desperate enough for attention that I would fake being in a well-known band, presumably to attract groupies or free drugs or whatever. Which, now I think of it, given the fame-whore atmosphere of the Metal Wars event, was probably not entirely unreasonable.

So, that was it. I explained that I was playing with Hidden Pictures in the Conspiracy Room in a few minutes and I really needed to get set up, and he stepped aside.

I love playing music more than just about anything. It’s what keeps me going. But I have to say, it really helps that being in this business provides an endless stream of surreal, inexplicable, depraved, hilarious, or frightening moments. That’s another big part of what gets me out of bed in the morning. There were several other moments last night, but this was my favorite.