More Drumming Dreams

Yet another drumming dream. I’m starting to see a pattern!

Paddy accepted this gig. We were the opening band for a soul and funk festival. I was out back hanging out with all these bands. I’d never heard of any of them, but they were supposedly big acts. There were about four bands that went on after us, but before the headliner. Who was the headliner? James Brown! So backstage, I’m talking gear with all the cats. One guy has this incredible looking drumset. It was a violet to silver sparkle fade, similar to this. The drums themselves were made out of titanium! It was slick.

It was time for me to get to the stage. I went to grab some stuff, and Jason Wilcox stopped me. He reached into my empty drum bags, and pulled a snare bag out, with a snare still inside. He asked “Do you want to leave this back here?” I opened the bag, and found my 1925 Leedy Black Elite inside. Now way did I want to leave that backstage with a bunch of strangers. But, I didn’t want to use it as my primary snare onstage. So I just decided to bring it onstage with me. I got to the stage, and Allison Murray, who was the band’s singer, was complaining about the set list. “Patrick has picked all these songs we don’t even know,” she said. I asked her if she questioned him about it. She said “He said ‘It’s just music. We can fake it.'” I agreed that opening for James Brown probably wasn’t the place to be figuring out songs onstage.

I then noticed that my drums weren’t set up! We had 15 minutes until we were supposed to start, and my drums were just lying about on the stage. I started to freak out. The festival was outside, and there was no curtain on the stage. I had to set up in front of the audience. They were getting uneasy; they new I’d be hard pressed to get set-up and ready in 15 minutes. Paddy came onstage, saw my delema, and said something along the lines of “What the heck is going on! How come the drums aren’t set up?” I said I didn’t know, but I was working as fast I could.

I took my bass drum, set it upright, and started adjusting the legs that keep the drum from moving. I adjusted stage right first. When I went to the stage left side, I noticed the drum leg bracket was all apart! Now, I had to reassemble this thing, under pressure, in front of screaming fans. And there were about 10 pieces to the bracket, and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how it was supposed to go back together. Then I woke up.

What’s this all mean? Three times in what, a week or so, I’ve had strange dreams about music. Two of them have involved being stressed for time, and two have included something broked that I needed to fix. What’s the deal?