House party we played 3-5-05: Good, bad, and ugly

Well, this was the 4th time I played live and it was quite a night. I could write ten pages on what I saw and heard, but I'll make it much shorter....

I got to sound check at 5pm. We set up after the drummer got his stuff up. We had our 3rd guitarist this time so I told him he could set up his amp and mic closer to the drummer. I was happy to play at the far left as the audience looks at you so I could play a bit louder and not hear the drums in my ears.

So we played a few songs at sound check and it seemed cool. I drove home to grab a shower and make some calls. By the time that was done it was about 8:30pm and I got to the gig at 8:50! We were supposed to go on at 9pm. Oh my I was stressed. Fortunately, the crowd was not big enough by then so I got a chance to crack a cold one and relax (while I tuned my guitar again).

We went on about 9:30 and opened with a differnet song than the last gigs as normal. I was cold for the first set. I was pretty nervous having the video camera hawking over my right shoulder and thinking of the past tapes of shows how I made mistakes. The first set consisted of songs I don't dig so much so that could be part of it, too.

After set one, I took a break, talked with some of the people out there and asked the usual (not like a machine gun, but here and there). "Are we too loud? How did we sound? Are the vocals ok? Blah blah. Just to get a jist of it all. Heck, I had my amp shooting about at my rear end so I couldn't hear how it sounded out there.

I talked to the bass player/vocalist2 during the break and he thought we sounded good. I laugh at what we hear and don't hear. Only the audience knows what we really sound like.

Okay, we start the 2nd set about 11pm and rocked out. It was cool, yet our 3rd guitarist wings things lots of times. He misses many practices and just plays what he hears. Still, Frank and I heard some dissonant things and look at one another then at Bill (yea, the 3rd guitarist) to see/hear who's making that sound. It happened quite a few time throughout the night. But that's cool. I mess up all the time for sure but I'm guessing Bill doesn't really practice this stuff much at home.

Girls are dancin' so that's good and we move on. We chose to do more rockin' songs this gig based on the video of the NYE gig. We had some good fun.

We took a break after that set and talked with the crowd and got some food. I was worried because we played like 30 songs in the 2 sets so we had only about ten more "polished" songs. I laugh somewhat when I talked to people after that set because most people were pretty plastered. I had soaked up some sud by then but, man, there were some toasted people out there!

So, the 3rd set was some cool songs. I got to start off with Takin' Care of Business and it was fun. About 5 minutes into the song we had to change gears. It was not a song we practiced (as a band) but 4x. Bill went into the Break a second time because he was not sure how to get out of it. It threw the other guitarist outta whack but, once I heard he wanted to do the break again, I was on top of it. We had a great finish for that song, though.

So we're into the 3rd set and it's like 1:30am so we keep going. We were supposed to stop on the "last song" but we kept going. Finally, about 2am we REALLY did stop.

All in all, it was fun. I loved seeing people dance and bob their heads. I chuckly at some of the comments like, "I loved that song...but I don't know the name of it" and we'd ask what are some of the words and "I don't know, but next time, we'll put our hands up in the air so you'll know." Oh I laughed so hard at that but it will work.

I can say I really enjoyed plyaing (and the audience dug) a song we did called "No Other Baby." It kills me that the main guitarist brought that into the band a year ago and doesn't even know who sings it. I can't find it on the internet for the life of me.. We play it really low-key palm-muted in the beginning then ramp it up, then tone down again repeatedly. It's one of my favorites when we play. I liked the song so much that night I waved to the drummer to keep the song going and we played like a 7-minute version of it!

Anyway, I did not plan to type all this tongiht and I am tired. Worked 12 hours and practiced with some buddies for 2 hours. I'm to bed for now. I'll elaborate on this when I get a chance. For now, so dinner (at 3am) and to sleep....

Now I'm awake and can type a bit more. I got my 7 hours of sleep.

I ended up calling each member of the band two nights later to get some feedback and I asked them to tell me the "good, the bad, and the ugly" about the show. I was pleased nobody said anything was ugly except one guy complained we didn't get paid. We knew before the gig we were playing this one for free and anything we got would be a bonus.

Good: People danced and liked our songs. We played I think 6 new ones or so. I think we sounded better than the last gig. We had fun laughing at one another from across the room. We smiled lots.

Bad: Later in the night the crowd died down because sane people go to bed before midnight. Some small mistakes in songs. Not ending some songs the way we normally do for whatever reason.

Ugly: None.

As a side note, even though we didn't get paid for that gig we got offers for 2 paid gigs and a possible 3rd one. So that's a good thing! The main guitarist said he would not play any free gigs anymore. The bassist and I are happy because, when we do gigs without Frank, we have much more fun (even though it doesn't sound as good).

So, that's about it. I don't think we have another gig until May. That's a long, long wait. :evil: