I Would Have Taken A Picture

Sometimes you don’t know that a performance together will be your last performance together.

Number D started in June 2024 as four strangers who raised their hands to join Rob’s School of Music’s first adult student band. The Real Just Christine on lead vocals and egg percussion. Potato on drums. Gooch on bass and backing vocals. Dr. Daryl on guitar.

The first song we learned was “You Oughta Know.”

For more than two years, that was Number D. The four of us. We never played a show without all of us. If one of us couldn’t make it, Number D couldn’t make it.

We also started writing our own music. Daryl would come in with an earworm of a riff and the beginnings of a structure. The guys would shape it and mold it, and then I would bring the words. Every original we wrote started with something Daryl heard in his head.

On May 23, 2026, we played at Round Table Brewery.

It was our last show together.

We had no idea.

We had another show on the calendar. We were supposed to play at the New York Boulders on July 5. But because of the oppressive heat, the performance was postponed until September 6.

Before September, Daryl got a job opportunity he couldn’t pass up. Taking it meant moving to Florida.

Suddenly September 6 wasn’t just our rescheduled Boulders gig. It was Daryl’s last show with Number D.

Until then, we had never needed a phrase like “the original lineup.” There had only ever been one lineup.

We were just Number D.

Our last practice was September 1.

At the end of practice, I asked Daryl if there was anything he wanted us to play one more time.

He looked at me.

I knew.

At practices, Chris would randomly launch into the two stick clicks that count us into “Hey Jealousy,” just to see if anyone was paying attention.

Nobody had to say the name of the song that night.

Two clicks, and we were all on the same page.

We played “Hey Jealousy” one more time, just for fun.

Five days later, we would play our last show.

Except we wouldn’t.

The day before the Boulders gig, Rob noticed that the start time on their website had changed. Nobody had told him. He reached out to find out what was going on.

That’s how we found out there was no gig.

The Boulders had double-booked us with another sponsor. The other sponsor took precedence.

There was anger on all sides. There was a lot of texting. There was a lot of cursing. Shots may have been fired on Instagram.

And there was sadness.

Rob tried to get us back into Round Table at the last minute, but it was Labor Day weekend. It wasn’t possible.

There was no time for one more gig. Daryl had a house to sell, packing to do, and a move to Florida.

We thought we had one more.

If I had known, when Daryl looked at me and Chris clicked his sticks together, that “Hey Jealousy” was the last song the four of us would ever play together, I would have taken a picture.

Instead, we played the song.

Then we packed up, because we thought we still had one more.