Had a show yesterday at 5:30. It went well, because we're getting to the point where we're not afraid to speak up if something's wrong with the mic balance.
I had seen the Scorpio guys in the audience (or at least a few of them), and so I made sure to plug their show, in my ranting section of Spider-Man.
"If you want to see a good show, we've got some friends from the Curse of the Jade Monkey in the audience. It's a show that really kicks ass!"
I look to the right, and all the rest of Kow just looking at me aghast. I didn't realize until later it's because I said "ass" in front of a few six-year-olds sitting right at the edge of the stage.
Yes, I casually curse. I say "hell" and "ass" at the drop of a hat. And I even do it in front of children. Hell, it was my ambition to get Caboodle to say "bastard" as her first word. (Apparently, Kit just adds the words "Jago, you" beforehand, so that it can become baby's first phrase. Like I don't get my name cursed by enough people already, I need toddlers to do it?)
Side note: Dev and I have thought up a name for a kick-ass punk group: Civic-Minded Toddlers. It goes great in my list of other names for bands, like Byron Funk an old English teacher of mine...
In any case, decent show. Afterwards, I was able to hang out with MFJ, get some dinner, watch some Red Dwarf and Spinal Tap.
Dev, MFJ and I then went to see The Edmonton Sketch Conspiracy.
We had a fun time, despite the horrible reviews they've been getting. Granted, this might be because we're such good friends with the members of the ESC, and because we have very similar senses of humour.
In any case, they started off with Dev's favourite sketch, Morrissey, which involves D! singing non-sensical stuff like "Okay, I'll be your Squirrel King!" over top of well-known songs. D! really hates Morrissey.
Some good sketches, some I didn't quite understand. I loved Les Bucherons, a send-up of the old Quebec folk tales about Quebeckers that get challenged by the Devil, only to usually overcome the odds.
One thing I'd fix is Burke's delivery on Big Game Hunter, where he seems to rush through the monologue so you can't hear all the jokes. And Edmonton Playwright seemed to be off for some reason.
And THEN Dev and I got free comics! Whooo! Yay for Warp Two Comics and Edmonton Playwright! Madman kicks ass!
This morning, I was wakened by Canton calling me to ask "Want to see a play for free? It starts in half an hour." So I rush into the shower and boot for the venue. Or what I thought was the venue. Happened to be a completely different venue, but, fortunately, the play didn't start until 12:30, not noon like we thought.
So, we got to see The Power of Ignorance, a brilliant one-man show staged like a self-help seminar. I really recommend anyone who likes comedy to see this, since it's SO well done.
You find out over the course of this play the horrible childhood the character has lived through, but it's such a well-written monologue, it comes off as just part of the character's motivation. And he's SO ignorant, it makes so some very funny interplay between the actor and audience.
Plus, he knocks himself out for about fifteen minutes at the end of the play, but he's got a tape that comes on in case of emergencies like this. We were waiting for the actor to come up to tell him how much we loved the play, but he acted unconscious until some tech dragged him offstage, with the recorded track saying "Please, do NOT touch Vaguen. Thank you for coming, please leave the theatre."
Brilliant stuff.
Hanging in the beer gardens, I read some review in the papers. For some reason, ESC and Jade Monkey got bad reviews. (Stupid reviewers...)
In the ESC's case, there was actually a line that said, "Imagine if you were watching the worst episode of Saturday Night Live. Now multiply that by 100." Ouch.
So up comes the girls from Jade Monkey, and I start trying to console them about their one-and-a-half star review in Vue. In the review, the author pretty much says that a saving grace was Anna's looks. THAT made Anna feel SO much better. {/sarcasm}
Went to a barbeque, played with Lllloyd's infant, and drove home for the next Kow performance.
For some reason, the sound was having issues, but we persevered, and put on a very good show, in my opinion. And the guys agreed, for the most part. Sure, there was the occasional tuning issue on some songs, since we had no monitor volume whatsoever, but our energy made up for it.
Highlights:
Caboodle walking across the plaza during Little Red Riding Hood. So I decided to follow after her, dragging the mic along for the ride, singing to the toddler the entire time.
During Sixty Minute Man, the Jade Monkey crew had asked me prior if they could come and worship at Canton during the song. I said, "Sure. That'll be fun," And made sure to tell everyone EXCEPT for Canton. Priceless.
Me chanting lyrics from Red Hot Chili Peppers during the Spider-Man vamp. I look over to the rest, and ask "What? Doesn't everyone love the Chili Peppers?" before going back into the song.
During Basket Case, the group's singing Canon in D while Dev decided to "be sneaky" and tiptoe up to the mic to start singing the Green Day portion. Astro and I exchanged confused looks, and started hissing, "Dev! What are you doing?" while not interrupting the song itself. So it became this tug of war between the classical Pachebel parts and the Green Day parts that really worked.
So, to sum up, while it wasn't the greatest of balance, we were completely on performance-wise. The banter was there, it was quick, and it wasn't that rehearsed. And the improv bits looked polished. By jove, I'm thinking we're getting there...
It was good to see my aunt, uncle and cousin in the audience. They seemed to enjoy the set a lot. Saturday, my parents see me for the first time in a long time, performance-wise. I'm pretty sure Dad has never seen Kow live. And Mom's seen us back our first year, where we were reading all music sheets and just really rough, stagewise...
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