Gig report: LC in Virgil, IL 5-19-07

Background

Well, haven't played a gig in 9 months so it was good to get out again. Last September we lost our drummer, bass player and one singer which left us in a pickle having only 2 guitar players and a singer left. About 2 months ago a band I used to play with broke up. After their breakup, that old band was down to just a guitar player, bass player and drummer. Once I got the news I immediately started making tons of calls. Two weeks later we all got together to practice and things have been good.

Now we have me on rhythm guitar, another on rhythm/lead, another on singing/rhythm/lead, bass player, drummer and a dedicated singer. Yea, six may be a bit much in a band but it's really cool. I'd rather play in a big band rather than a 3 or 4 piece. Sure it cuts down on the gig money but no biggie. It's all about playing.

Gig

Okay, now for the gig. We had 1.5 hours before we were to take stage after the opening band. We all got some pitchers of beer and It was out in the middle of nowhere about 45 minutes from where I live. Don't know why, but I'm like this before every show. My hands would visibly shake when I'd try to take a sip of beer. The guys are like "are you alright" and I told 'em this is just how it is until I get on stage.

Speaking of such, fortunately they had an old flatbed trailer as a stage that was about 25' long by 12' deep not including the additional riser built just for the drummer. It was great to spread out at an outdoor gig! The wind and temperature were absolutely perfect. Unfortunately, I was the last to set up my equipment because people kept asking me questions and I finally told the strangers I had to got set up.

We did a quick sond check where I walked out into the crowd with my wireless guitar and played then had each instrument try to match my volume. Worked pretty good. We started 1/2 hour late (as was my prediction based on our first time together on stage with the 3 new members). We rocked the first song and many after that. The sound was good for the whole first set (still in daylight). We got really lost in Barracuda and had me laughing so hard as that closed the first set. :lol:

Break time

Things were decent and all 3 monitors (which had all of in the mix through the PA and monitors). For some reason we could not hear either vocal monitor nor the drummer's monitor the whole second set. We spent maybe 5 minutes trying to figure out what's up but got frustrated and just played without them. I could not hear either of the other two guitar players and barely the bass. :shock: Just my amp shooting up at me as my monitor, drums, and vocals. As I walked across stage I could hear others but did me no good unless I would stand center stage and I was not gonna do that.

Another cool thing is my brother came on stage to play bass on a song. His first time ever playing in front of people so that was awesome! Further, our drummer (and me and one other guitar player) were not ready to play Heartbreaker (Benatar) on stage. We all got off stage after we coaxed the drummer from another band I've been with for 3 years on stage. He took 2 minutes to familiarize himself with the other drummer's equipment and they rocked with just drums, vocals, one guitar and bass. Downright awesome!

I'm usually a fairly prepared person and arranged for us to have extra extension cords and two 500 watt halogen lights to shoot at us from each side of the stage. As night fell we could not see our hands on our instruments so moved those literally on each side of the stage. Those lights still blinded me but at least I could see my hands. That situation will have to be rectified for our show next saturday. Nevertheless, we ended the show with Sunshine of Your Love and had a blast.

Summary

All in all, I think it went well and we progressed through any problems we had, well, because we had to. Great to get all of us on stage for the first time as the reformed group. We're looking forward to the show next Saturday and other 4 weeks later. We don't have pictures up on the site yet but you can check out latecalling.com if you're bored. :D As another irrelevant fact, this was the first show I didn't touch my volume pedal, amp volume or volume pots on my guitar for the whole show. I sound checked and left the level the same the whole night. Funny, I found out my brother was walking behind stage and ramping up my amp volume throughout the night.

I watched some of the videos of the show and things sounded pretty good. As musicians we always hear the "off" things and we all make plenty of mistakes. Often it pains me to watch 'em but I do it just to see what's going on. I learned that one of our other guitar players and I very often play chords in differnt position so that's actually a good thing I think for a blend of sound.

I just joined Photobucket and really have no clue how it works. But I uploaded 5 pics or so at http://s68.photobucket.com/albums/i31/corbind/ so we'll see what happens. I tried to upload 2 videos (first and last song) but they were twice the allowed MBs so couldn't do it.