Well, i'm just about wrecked exhausted after doing this show tonight, my first live appearance since Seattle, with Nevermore,back in April of 2006, but let me say it's a good exhaustion!
This was more or less a test to see where I am at physically, playing again on stage, what my endurance level is, all that kind of thing.
Man, we did 90 minutes, and I felt every one of those 90 minutes, hardcore!!! Good to have the oh so familiar ache in my neck back again, and I know it's gonna hurt like a bitch tomorrow, and the only sure for that= another show to go play! But, alas, there isn't another one for me to go play tomorrow....
This was Sweet Leaf's farewell of sorts, tonight. Lance Ozanix (Skitzo), Steve Hoffman (The EssenEss Project), and I have been doing this together since 1994, when Lance asked if I was available to fill in on a show that he was doing with Sweet Leaf back then. Being a huge Sabbath and Ozzy fan, and on top of that, to play with two good friends, one of which I had never jammed with before, the other in which we had 2 bands at the time going, I jumped at the chance! We went through a few drummers in our time, over the years, and in 2000 or so (may have been 1999, can't remember!
), we got our good friend, and former bandmate in Ariah, Chris Newman, in on drums, and continued doing shows on a somewhat consistent basis, until 2004, in between my hectic schedule (Testament,leaving Testament, joining Nevermore, and writing the next Dragonlord album as well as Nevermore), and Lance, Steve and Chris'.
2005 came around, and found me in Europe for a few months,doing the Dragonlord and Nevermore albums simultaneously, and then on tour for the rest of the year, i support of This Godless Endeavor. Never a free moment i that year to get together with my bros,and do a few shows, like we had been able to in past years. Along with that, came my decision to move to the UK that year as well, making future chances of doing Sweet Leaf, impossible.
We decided to wrap up with a private party for some friends, at thier house, and figured on calling it a day for the band, never relaizing what was to come.
You guys know the rest of the story pretty much, but my being back in California enabled me to reconnect with the guys, and we decided to do one final show, for our faithful!
So, we not only recorded tonight's performance with my ProTools rig, but also were able to secure 3 video cameras, and make a go of it, recording tonight's performance, visual and audio as well!
Haven't seen the video yet, as this will take a bit to compile 3 camera's worth of footage, but I just got done listening back to the entire show, and, I gotta say, the sound is actually pretty damn good!
The crowd, some 250+, were very energetic, and gave us the energy we needed, "Going fucking crazy!", and singing a lot of the songs along with us, right down to guitar melodies! Any of you guys and gals reading this, a HUGE THANK YOU!!! for coming out, and seeing us off!!!
So, we're putting this together, and will release videos from tonight's performance, on our myspace, as well as our site!
For now, you can check out the URL's here: Our MySpace:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=63220769
And our website:
http://listen.to/sweetleaf
Now, you really will be able to listen to Sweet Leaf, once and for all!
We said this was a "farewell" show of sorts, so stay tuned, we may just be doing another show sometime again!
