Hot Mess

I was back in Massachusetts over the weekend, in the Waltham area for the wedding of a high school friend. It was the first time I've done a 3.5-hour drive plus a full wedding, reception, and afterparty on only 3.5 hours of sleep. How I did it I don't think I will ever quite know, but I think the key was not having any cake when I was at my most exhausted moment, and avoiding the inevitable sugar crash that would've followed. Experience, for the win!

The majority of the reception was under a big tent behind an old house, complete with amazing food (we all needed our fat pants), a stellar open bar ("No, I can't pour you that in a shot glass, but I can pour you that in a much bigger glass"), and a great party band called Hot Mess. And as someone who does what they do, I'll tell you what impressed me the most about the group. A few hours into the reception a storm came through (like most of the northeast, apparently), and it dumped what seemed like a ton of rain. So much rain that it was running into the tent on the ground and blowing onto the dance floor. So much rain that my jacket hanging on my chair would've been in a puddle had I not moved it, and I was seated toward the middle. So much rain that the band had to scramble to get as much of their equipment away from the sides and covered in plastic as they could. So much rain that it shorted out all the electricity on the band's end of the tent. Yeah, that much rain. So there we were on the biggest day of my friend's life with at least 1.5 hours to go at her wedding reception...and the band had no power. We were about two 16th notes away from a potential nightmare.

Now, I personally know a lot of musicians, and some of them, if they found themselves in this situation, would simply say, "Sorry, the show's over," take their money and go. Truthfully, you'll find people like that in any business. But not with this band. They may be called Hot Mess, but rest assured that unlike my friend's girlfriend (yes, I know I'm crashing at your place this weekend but you were a riot and you admitted it yourself), this band had their shit together. They took a few moments to get everything situated the way that it needed to be, got their power back, and picked right back up where things left off. And the party thoroughly continued. My friend Sam Adams and I had a long, extended conversation that night, and we both agreed that it was professionalism at its best. My friend Dewars concurred, though my pal Mionetto thought there maybe could've been a little more keyboard in the mix - but what does he know?

Anyway, a big shout-out to my friends Matt & Tessa for putting together such a wonderful wedding. I'm so happy I stayed awake for all of it!