Saturday 19 May 2001
Ruby Tuesday
KAZOWIE | DEVILCAKE
lineup: Mike Gourley, Ray Lilly, Mike Chuck Bill, Ian "stop calling me Beef" Stewart, Todd Skaggs, Darrin Ailes

I got the call at 8:45 Saturday morning. Kazowie's opening band cancelled, do we want to play in their place?

A hectic round of phonecalls later it was determined that, hell yes, Devilcake would gladly rock the ass off Ruby Tuesday. Sure.

Devilcake played at Ruby Tuesday in 1991. That's the only other time we were there. We were opening for Christian. Diego's main gig was with Christian but he played bass with Devilcake too. That was one of our first non-Apollo's gigs in the early days. And it was abysmal. The soundman hated us before we even played a note. That's when Todd was still doing the DJ thing, plus we had 3 or 4 guitar players and two or three bass players. We played through Christian's gear, which didn't help us much. Their equipment was fine, it just wasn't what we were used to. The drumset was this vast thing that sounded totally different to my set. I recall playing to about three people (if even) and being very depressed afterwards. Plus I forgot my snazzy jacket with the "I LOVE DICK" pin on it. And my favorite sunglasses were in the pocket too.

But that was nearly ten years ago. What wonders would Ruby Tuesday hold for Devilcake in 2001? If any?

We were the fuckin' early-birds when we got there at 9:15pm, of course. There were literally 3 people in the bar. We loaded our crap pretty quickly considering our proximity to OSU's Riot Alley. We weren't nervous exactly, Devilcake being a band of burly guys, but we weren't eager to test the drunken vandalistic tendencies of the nearby cooker-outers who were already on their porches with their grills cranked up to 11.

It was my first gig as a guitar player in oh, about six hundred years, and I enjoyed immensely both of the minutes it took me to set my shit up. Darrin pieced his drumkit together methodically while Todd struggled with technical difficulties with the MIDI and the Keyz O Death all night.

Due to the last-minute nature of the show, costumes were not procured. We decided to do Devilcake Unmasked. Except for me, I wore the same thing I always wear at Devilcake shows. Only this time people could actually see what it was because I wasn't trapped behind the damn drums!

We did a quick soundcheck on "Guacamole Damn It" that caused about 10 audience members to appear from nowhere. It felt extremely good to play "Guacamole Damn It," for reasons not easily quantifiable here. My amp was deliciously devilishly loud and the guitar was good 'n in tune. So it sounded nice to me. And it felt goooooooood. We tore the ass off that song.

The flu I've been battling for the past week (since the Record Convention last Saturday! No thanks to collectors of moldy albums!) barely even acknowledged the Dayquil I took. Which is to say that I played our entire set with a snout full of snizzot. I thought about doing a farmer's blow but I didn't want to end up wearing it. I knew there'd be a lot.

So anyway. I think we actually played a set in there too.

We did the soundcheck and then sat at the tables nearest to the stage, talking about music and the internet and music and telling jokes and whatever else.

The Devilcake Multimedia Crew (ie Robert) powered up the audio/visual capture devices (ie my camcorder) and Devilcake took the stage.

They kinda like to leave all the lights on at Ruby Tuesday's, which I don't really go for. I think rock 'n roll should be dark and misted with synthetic smoke from a fog machine. It's hard to get your rock on with that many damn lights blaring away. But we did get our rock on.

The Keyz O Death were launched for the old-school Devilcake intro, which goes "boop-a-doop-a-doop, a-boop-boop, do-dee boop-a-doop-a-doop." Apparently it's a Herbie Hancock song called "Chameleon." Alls I knows is that I when I hears that track I goes into a trance. And the only thing that brings me out of the trance is Gourley yelling "BOOBIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSS!!!!"

Did I mention that there's no ventilation in Ruby Tuesday's? I was sweating like an ass before we even played a note. I swear to Ace that with the strobe light behind me and sweat flying off my head, it looked like glitter! And the glitter that came off my old prism shirt looked like sweat! It was amazing!

I think I played the solo to "Pie Hair Pie" with the guitar behind my head. I've never had much use for cliched rock antics onstage, but at the same time, if you're going to play a highly uninventive guitar solo in the middle of a song that employs a mere four chords, then why not do something that's just so dumb that it has a shot at being funny?

Doing backing vocals destroyed my already flu-ravaged throat. But it was worth it. Totally.

I got to sweat and jump and play my guitar over my head. It was fucking brilliant.

Darrin did a great job on the drums. We did have a few trainwrecks but they were mostly my fault, from being in the wrong place at the wrong time or from just not paying attention to the songs. Todd's technicial difficulties with the Keyz O didn't stop him from beatboxing and doing backing vocals and generally keeping the show moving. Mike Chuck Bill is confident in his role as the Kim Thayil of Devilcake. Ha. Ray was over on bass, holding down the low end like a Columbus version of the guy in Social Distortion or some shit.

And Gourley... shit. The less audiences get into us, the more he gets into them. It's amazing. He rocked every bit as much in regular clothes. Devilcake is not just fancy clothes and an expensive light show and goth chicks dancing in cages! Oh no, there's so much more to it.

I'll have to come back with the set list. I didn't bring one home. Doh!

I know we played
Pie, Hair Pie
I Want A Big Mac
Salad Bar Man
Marshmallow
Soft Batch Mama
Deez Nuts
Stromboli Fever
Chicken Nuggets Of Sin
Guacamole Damn It
Fribble

I'm not positive of the exact order - but it's not like anyone is exactly in a position to dispute any of it. So there!