Aww, shit, I'm sorry about eating up the whole front page. That would be the balloon-head effect I was talking about.

POUR IT ON!

And deal with it tomorrow . . .

You go to the health food store & get some of these. A musician friend of mine used to swear by them when he had a cold. Then, when you get to the gig you have a whiskey and a beer, then have another at the break. Whisky will kill the cold germs at least temporarily and also you'll forget that you're sick. But what about tomorrow, you say? Tomorrow you will feel like grim death on a stick, but, well, that's tomorrow. Does Keith Richards worry about tomorrow? Does Shane MacGowan? Hell no!

Follow mygothlaundry's advice. I dropped in to recommend the whiskey as well. Break their legs.

Yeah, the last thing you need is lotsa beer. It'll dehydrate your tissues further. Have aspririn (no cold medication and a whiskey in hot water with lemon before the show to loosen you up, and maybe another if you're playing more than one set.

Whiskey's still dehydrating, but I think you'll want the slight buzz and the relief it brings from the cold.

Have a great show!

heh. The best advice is when people tell you what you want to hear. Whiskey and lozenges it is, and damn the torpedoes.

if I wake up looking like Keith Richards tomorrow, I might hold a grudge.

I would think a alcohol is a depressant and would keep your natural defenses down. You know how you get worse as the day goes on? Airborne. It's awesome.

Let me tell you, you gotta mind a cold onstage. A cold will burn you out real quick.

Yeah, I came close to burning out once, in Detroit.

We were in town for a three-show weekend. It seemed our bassist was dogged out with the flu or the clap or something. So he wasn't up for much after the first show, when our manager came in with five or six of the girls from the front row -- all tight shirts and wet panties -- you know the type.

The drummer and I had been popping pills since we got off the bus, so we were ready to kick up some dust. Joints were passed, beer was drunk, the girls started getting ticklish and doing a little lap dance, when our manager tossed out his empty and said "that was our last beer."

So we left him with our bassist, piled in our car, and told our driver to stop at a package store. We sent one of the hot-pants in for a bottle of vodka, which we cracked in the car on the way to dinner.

The girls were crazy at dinner. Food fights across the table, head underneath it. One of them had some blow with her; we huffed that, went back to the hotel, and partied all night.

Come the third night of this sort of debauchery, I was fried. There I was, onstage drinking beer and popping 'ludes to keep my lid on, our drummer was speeding, and I mean speeding, and our bassist, man, someone was hooking him up with a skin full of china for the previous few weeks -- turned out it was our manager -- and what we thought was clap was a major dope nod. It was the best show we ever played.

Man, that was an insane time. How did I keep from burning out? It was easy: I knew that I'd rest when it was over, and at the next week's show, there'd be plenty of booze, drugs, girls, and rock'n'roll to start in on all over again.

Have a great show and a big yes to the whiskey advice.

I think the adage is "drink a cold, smoke a fever" but I might have that reversed. Good luck with the gig.