Careful What You Wish For

It was a couple of firsts for Nootril Drop, the band I'm in.

We already had scheduled to play on Friday, June 19 at the Princeville Heritage Days beer tent. But a day or so before that, we got word that we were invited to play for an hour at the Peoria Steamboat Days on the CEFCU Center Stage on Saturday, June 20. For all those out of town, this stage is located on Peoria's Riverfront. A lot of the more popular local bands play there. And playing there has always been something of a goal for us. So not only 2 gigs in one weekend, we get to play a venue long sought after.

Friday arrived and we had storm after storm. We still arrived in Princeville to determine if we were even going to be able to play. When talking with the organizers and checking things out, we learned that the band they booked for Saturday were told they were booked for Friday. Hmmm. So we used that mistake to our advantage and negotiated to play the next night on Saturday. So now we have 2 gigs on the same day/night.

Playing the CEFCU stage was a blast! We all had a good time and it went by real fast. It was hot and humid out, but there was something of a breeze going on. But it still didn't matter. We were playing the CEFCU stage.

When we were done, Ted Sumner, who is also in the band with us as well as a PACE (Peoria Area Community Event) volunteer went to talk to some of the other volunteers. He then discovered that this gig was a quasi-audition and that they wanted to book us for the Taste of Peoria in August. This is very cool.

Once we were packed up, we bolted for Princeville to do it all over again; only this time we had to set everything up ourselves. And it was terribly hot and humid among the cornfields of Princeville. But this show went well also. There was probably about 200 people in the beer tent with a handful dancing to the music at times. We even handed out a business card or two. Needless to say, we were wiped at the end of the night. But it was the first time we played the CEFCU stage and the first time we had 2 gigs in one day.

We have another gig coming up next week. Nootril Drop also played Dennis and Shari's annual Pigstock last week and two weeks before that we played Ambulance Days in Princeville. It's getting to the point we're finding gigs each and every week. I'm not so sure that's something I really want, so I guess I should be careful of what I wish for.

We will get a break; nothing's booked for July... yet.