“The longest minute…” Jon Beasley

It was January 2001…wait, back up a second….I was in The Smizokes and we had just gotten back together after a short “hiatus”. This was a break that came at the worst possible time, when we were about to release our second record “X-tinction Agenda”. A few members had left, most notably our drummer, which left us unable to play. So we took a few months off to contemplate our existence and figure out what to do with 1,000 CDs that had been newly minted. But, lucky for us our drummer came back and the remaining members reconvened to start preparations for CD release shows, and returning things back to normal.
Right off the bat we were lucky enough to score an opening slot for one of the biggest bands in the worl…er…our particular genre…The Mighty Mighty Bosstones!
Pretty sweet! One of my favorite bands of all time (no really…) and we were playing at the 9:30 Club, a great D.C. venue where all the great bands that don’t pack arenas play. So we practiced and practiced, trying to get back to full speed. This was gonna big our big chance to play to our target “ska scene” audience, and for more than 50 or so people!
The night of the show was upon us. We got there early to hear the Bosstones sound check and to be sure we were prepared. The opener was another local band we were good friends with, The Players. The Players were/are a great, tight as shit ska/reggae/soul band. They came out with a ton of energy and really got the crowd going (this is pretty rare in most cases, as the opener is usually all but ignored); I think this was because the “ska scene” was pretty much comprised of the die-hards by 2001. We knew or were acquainted with practically everybody in the room. So The Players do their thing and we were up.
We went to the stage really hyped up; we knew this was our chance to show what we could do. Not just to the audience but to The Bosstones and the 9:30 (who we knew would hook us up with more shows if we did well). We had already played there twice at this point, both were gigs opening for “small time” acts (No disrespect intended to Skavoovie or Mary Prankster) with practically no one there…but we SOUNDED great. Anyway, back to the lesson at hand…
We took the stage and blasted into one of our signature songs “Sportin’ My Wifebeater” (NOT a song about domestic violence) and the crowd again responded very well! It was a great feeling. All my nerves melted away and we settled into the swagger we would have at say a VFW hall or The Sidebar. We hammered through 3 more songs, riding the wave, feeling good….UNTIL….
Our “leader” (I will change names here to protect the innocent, we’ll just call him “Spleejay” ) broke a string! Now, for those of you that have played or play in bands will verify, this can go one of two ways.
1.) The band plays it off; hopefully the “string-less” one will have a back-up guitar ready to go. Tuned up good and proper and you can just jump back into the set without loss of time or momentum. At the very least the band should jam on something or tell a joke to keep the crowd occupied while the “string-less” one re-strings his guitar.
2.) The numb-nuts member of your band (formerly the “string-less” one) hasn’t planned ahead that far, and rather than having a guitar ready to go, decides to take 2 minutes on stage to re-string his instrument…in front of 800 people…while the rest of the band stands there stupefied and awkwardly silent waiting for him to finish….as 800 people begin to chant “MI-GHTY MI-GHTY BOSS-TONES” in unison at the top of their lungs…..
You can guess which one of these scenarios we dealt with…the longest minute indeed.
Needless to say, we never recovered. What were once the beginnings of a coming out party was now a nightmare for our band. We completely lost the crowd. We became piss break time. We had come through so much in those last few months only to find ourselves exactly where we wanted to be, but blowing the whole thing. We limped through the rest of the set and scurried off stage to a smattering of applause.
Of course everyone we brought with us that night said we did great. That’s their job as friends. But we knew the truth. As the years have gone by I’ve relayed this story here and there over a beer with an old acquaintance from Smizokes days or to a band full of kids who have yet to experience that kind of humiliation, like I’m preaching about safe sex.
To say I never really recovered from this experience would be being too dramatic. I’ve played in four different bands since. We even had a great 10 year Smizokes reunion show in February of 2007! But I WILL say it took awhile to come to terms with that kind of let down. We really thought this show was the stepping stone we needed to accomplish some of the dreams we had. Warped Tour, sign to an “indie”, maybe make a living making music? I just couldn’t help but wonder if it was one of those moments where if I went back in time and saved the day, I’d come Back to the Future and find I was on tour with Social Distortion or something.
But that’s not the way of it, and there it is.