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Pit Stories: Tanked By A Pretty Smile

The ranks of our Tuesday Pit Stories ever grows longer, with another foray into the dank depths of metal shows arriving today.

This week we've got vocalist / bassist Joshua Cayer from doom metal trio Longhouse, sharing his memory of the band's first show, which didn't quite go off as expected.

Our musician readers can probably identify with Cayer's nervousness, which featured one song tanked by nothing less than the smile from a pretty lady in a sea of sweaty, beer drinking dudes:

I don't think we have played enough to have any extravagant tales from the pit, but I can share a story about our very first show. I want to firstly fess up by stating that I get extremely nervous before each and every show. Not puke-nervous, but definitely queasy and tense-nervous.

So, we decided to start our set with one of our more complex songs, "Earth from Water." For us, "more complex" isn't saying a lot, but because I was so tense my fingers didn't want to work the way they're supposed to, so a simple root-fifth-seventh arpeggio felt like I was trying to play an Animals As Leaders tune! Now, let's add in poor stage lighting, and a drummer who was likely equally as nervous and kicked in at an extra 20-30 bpm's higher than we should've been. I'll say that I'm glad not too many people were there to see it. Luckily we managed to settle in to the next song, and had the growing crowd headbanging along with us by the end.

There was also another stand-out moment from that show: during one of our favourites, "Gehenna Gate," my eye caught glimpse of an exceptionally pretty lady in the crowd. She kind of really stood out in a room full of bearded, beer-slogging dudes. Now, don't tell my wife this, but just as I was about to deliver another line of hellish doom screams I saw her smile, and it actually caused me to forget the lyric, and almost stop playing my bass! It's a good thing that you can't typically understand what the heck U'm saying anyways, and I managed to recover. All in all, our first was a pretty fun show and we were pretty happy with getting that under our belt.

Below you can check out the track "No Name, No Marker" from Longhouse's sophomore album, "II: Vanishing," which was released via Bandcamp on April 14th, 2017. You can follow the latest on this Ottawa-based doom outfit via Facebook here.

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