I didn't wake up once until 11:30 a.m. when Jesse knocked on our door. We found out we could stay in the same hotel for the gig tonight. The venue was the downtown Royal Oak version of the Novi club, owned by the same people. It was also two floors, but not quite as big, and the urban-industrial fish look continued, but with the addition of a blues music motif. Big posters of Son House, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters, et al festooned the walls, with the same posters under lacquer for table tops. One wall was lined with 8X10 framed and autographed promo photos of previous guests of the club. Again the waitresses were hot-looking 20-somethings with attitudes. I was getting a little tired of it.

We loaded in through the kitchen to the elevator, then horfed our stuff about 70 more feet to the corner stage. We set up and then ordered up our food. There were interesting menu items, such as "The Muddy Water" and the "Howlin' Wolf" dinners featuring beans, rice and cabbage (although they had run out of beans--horrors). We sat at a table under a large poster of the legendary crossroads at Highway 61 and 49. Terry sat next to me and said, "I remember pickin' cotton right around there." It was back in the 50's when he was a teenager, and his parents were sharecroppers. Terry had followed the well-worn musical path from Mississippi to Chicago shortly after that, honing his chops in jazz groups.

Our host, presumably the manager, was a bright, articulate fellow whose father was from Nigeria, and mother was from Jamaica. He was very attentive to our needs and really tried to make us feel at home, even lighting candles for us in the green room, and hooking interested parties up with some local herb. There was plenty of water and beer and a bottle of Cabernet for Terry, who was feeling much better, and feeling no pain by the end of the night.

Again, the crowd was inattentive and preoccupied with meat marketing, with this crowd seeming to be on average about five years younger. There were some old-school R&B fans I could hear enjoying the proceedings, and there was finally quite a bit of dancing in a packed house by the second set.

The big problem was the sound tech. Initially, it seemed Elaine was going to be doing the gig, but some young fella came instead, and proceeded to make a mess of things. Possibly due to non-familiarity with the equipment (which was very high end), or ignorance, or both, for the ENTIRE night, he just couldn't keep the damn monitors from squealing at around 10K. It was very distracting and maddening.

Nonetheless, everyone was rested up and the band sounded good. I missed a couple of endings, which tripped me out. I seem to be having a particularly difficult time sorting out these songs. It's simple stuff musically, but the band has been together for over 10 years and expect very specific things to happen drum-wise within the songs. We've been over it plenty, but I've got a few mental blocks I'm trying valiantly to work through. Terry is very patient and appreciative of what I've been doing, so that makes me feel like there's hope for me in the band. I've played probably 200 gigs with Jesse, so we lock in well together, and he is helping a lot with signals. The band is just used to the drummer knowing all the material cold, and so I'm having to play pretty intense catch up. I'm going to step up my efforts to connect the song titles to the intros, which has always been a weak point for me, and I think throwing in additional road rattle has tended to knock out my focus a bit.

We took our time loading out, relaxed in the knowledge we were off until next Friday. It's an expensive hiatus, however, for Terry, and he's been grumbling about not doing a club circuit anymore. He made that announcement tonight in the van. He felt that he had been fooling himself about his vocal endurance, and needed to realize his age may be catching up with him a bit (he's 63). Plus, a performer of his stature can get away with doing just a few high-profile gigs a year and still make ends meet. He was concerned about us not being able to depend on him for gigs, and for us to start looking around on our own to keep working. Jesse and I have already been planning a band and will be gigging after this tour. But it looks like Terry Evans is done with playing two 75's in clubs. He said doing one 90-minute set in a club would be alright, but they'd have to pay the same or more.

Intending to go to sleep, Jeff and I instead ended up watching a dumb gangsta-military-tough guy movie till 5 a.m. We slept like dead men again till noon.