What’s worse than Valentine’s Day falling on a Wednesday night, smack dab in the middle of the week?  Maybe performing at a rock club on the following night… Thursday, February 15^th.

For those of you who participate in the Valentine’s Day ritual, you know what I’m talking about… I mean, who isn’t exhausted beyond imagination the day after?  If you live in a highly populated urban area, you have to make plans practically six-months in advance to reserve a decent place to eat and then make more plans to entertain, all in the same evening.

Maybe you’re one of the lucky ones and booked an early package deal at a Comedy Club (wise choice, you can park there, eat there and be entertained afterwards) or go to a movie… which could mean a drive to a new location and hunt for a non-existent parking spot.

There’s no escape… when Valentine’s Day falls on a Wednesday, everyone who is part of the ritual is out at the same time, all clamoring to start and end the evening at a decent hour so you can “have a night-cap” and still make it into work the next day… and when you do drag your sorry carcass onto the job, you’re just counting the minutes until you can get the hell out of there, go home and sleep… going out to a rock club and watching a band play until two in the morning is likely a low priority on your “to do” list.

So, did I mention how hard it was to sell tickets for this show??  Fortunately, we had two new members Dudley Taft (lead guitar) and Gary Lee (bass guitar), so Patt and I tried to push the responsibility onto them… but alas, from Buffalo, NY to Los Angeles, CA Parousia was still ‘our band’ and so, we all put on our salesmen caps and tried our best to convince friends and family that Madame Wong’s West was the place to be this Thursday night.

Marty Leggett was working at a printing shop and met a lot of people. He had plenty of opportunity to give-away tickets and he usually did pretty well.  Dudley Taft just moved down here from Seattle and barely knew anyone.  Gary Lee came on board in December 1989.  He was a professional and wanted to be part of the team. He gave away a few pairs but was mostly disconnected from the process.  Most of his crowd was into heavy metal, with groups like Pantera, (“Cowboy’s from Hell”) and Metallica (“Master of Puppets”).  Once the tickets were all distributed, you just had to hope and pray that one-third of the people you handed them to actually show up, pay the $2.00 admission fee and then buy a few drinks.

The new band line up nicely filled the Madame Wong’s West upstairs stage. Parousia was in the middle slot on this night which meant we hit the stage around 9:15 and played to about 10:15 pm.  We asked for the opening spot ‘cause if anyone did show-up it would likely be only for a little while.

Tonight was a good chance to tighten up the show with the new guys. Dudley got the hang of the songs quickly and soon began to fill in with his own “shredder-like” style. Gary played the basics. Nothing fancy. He took over the bass-parts that Marty was playing on the low keys. Not much more was added.

The NEW PAROUSIA was looking and sounding good.  We had a five-piece band again plus three sexy and motivated dancers entertaining the audience in front of the stage, Claude, Susan and Jenny.

We were ready to take on our next show on February 21^st, opening for A&M recording artists GIANT at Bogart’s in Long Beach, CA. GIANT had just hit it big with their power ballad “”I’ll See You In My Dreams” from their album, “Last of the Runaways”