More POWER! (Hugh, hugh, hugh)

Yesterday, I played a backyard bbq show with my band in Schaumburg.  It was the sloppy, informal sort of show where enthusiasm seemed to count a lot more than musicality.  However, our lead guitarist, Stover, was unaware of this fact, and had brought two PAs, a fog machine, and two interactive lighting systems from his side job as a DJ.  In Stover's head, he's always headlining Madison Square Garden.

While I appreciated Stover's enthusiasm, all his extra equipment, combined with the various guitar and vocal amps we already had set up, added up to an unwieldy tangled spider-web of electrical cables and extension cords on the porch we were using as a stage.  I was reminded every time I tripped over this Medusa's head that we were likely sucking more power from the house in an hour than had been used in the past week.  Each time our band made a big blast of angry noise, I could picture the gigantic belch of energy that had just been burned.

I just might have to do a few acoustic sets to compensate.