Summary: No Trace block party gig 8-26-06

Well we had an excellent gig with “the other band,” No Trace. :D That's my first real band. It was an annual block party in Lombard, IL. Somehow I volunteered to move tons of the drummer's (Joe) stuff and that about killed me in the ridiculous humidity we had Saturday. Everyone set up in a double wide garage because it looked like it could rain and nobody wanted to chance killing gear with rain.

The drummer set up way in the back. The keyboard player/3rd guitar player (Chris) had 3 keyboards set up at a 90 degree angle so she took up about 5' x 7' with that and her amp. One of her keyboards weighed more than my amp! The lead guitar player (Bill) set up to my left and I filled out the space on the right. Bill & I had our floorboards where the garage door would come down. The bass player (Jim) had his bass way back to the left of the kick drum and he set up his mic and stood about 8' in front of us all. He sings most of our songs.

I generally like to set up last so that people aren't running cords/wires all around/on my stuff. I let everyone set up and thought they were done so I started to set up. I had my main stuff in the right place and made my connections from the floorboard, wireless, and amp. Had tons of cables and wires as usual. Wouldn't you know it there must have been another 4-5 cables being wrapped around my stuff and my guitar got hit with one.

So I learned to just set up even later. With this band everyone sings but me but only vocals go through the PA's. After I tuned up and played a bit I told everyone I had to go home for a shower. Did that and got back late. We were gonna go on at 7pm but I didn't get there until 7:15pm but nobody was worried.

I brought a 7-foot dual halogen work light that could put out 300, 600, 1100, or 1600 watts of light. I remember last year I couldn't see where my fretting hand was so the light solved the problem! I grabbed a beer and checked my tuning again.

Here was the set list:

SET 1
Old Time Rock N Roll
Brown Eyed Girl
Venus
If I Needed Someone
Last D.J.
Hit Me..Best Shot
Secret Agent Man
Hearbreak Hotel
Sundown
It Don't Come Easy
I Wanna Be Sedated

SET 2
House Is Rockin'
Real Fine Place
Jenny Jenny
Keep Your Hands To Yourself
Runaway
Boys
Tequila Sunrise
Rock This Town
Wipeout
Takin' Care Of Business

SET 3
Can't Get Enough
Blister In The Sun
Twist
Shake Tailfeather
What I Like About You
You Wreck Me
Should I Stay Or Should I Go
Rockin' In The Free World
Hey Jude / End
Peggy Sue

Will play but don't know where yet
Saturday…Park
Hollywood Died

We start playing Old Time R&R (Bob Seger) and it was sounding good. We play it like the live CD but even more overdriving. I was totally dreading Venus because I play the intro and suck at it. :shock: Bill and Chris are is so much better at guitar than me. I've heard Bill play intros to songs at practice and then he'd tell me to do it. Anyway, I did okay on it and the intro is also the outro in our version so I had to do it again! I started to do the outro and realized the others were still playing. I looked over at Chris and smiled and she smiled back.

Secret Agent Man went over really well and I thought it sounded good. I had to do the intro to It Don't Come Easy (another one Bill sounds superior at but makes me do the intro). I think it sounded decent but I was more self-conscious doing that intro than Venus. Sedated was totally fun cranking out the 180 bpm crunch. :evil:

(You're half way through the post...)

To start the 2nd set we did House is Rockin'. For some reason I always have such a hard time with that song at rehersals. Somehow I was totally on until the very last two lines in the outro. I stopped playing because I sounded off. Otherwise it was a blast. Jenny Jenny was fun and sounded better than I was expecting. On Rock this town we got the breaks/stops right. Man, I can't remember which song but Chris and I were expecting to be ending the song and Bill was still going so we started playing again and finally got out of it. :lol: TCOB was fun but I felt I sounded a bit trebly and played some short segments with the mid pickup but went back to the treble pickup as I had always played it.

Well that was supposed to be the last song of the 2nd set. Instead, Jim decides we're gonna just run straight through without a break. I almost told him to play ten minutes without me because my fretting wrist was hurting by then and needed a break. But the opener was Can't Get Enough and I love playing that song. I liked Blister, too and should have opted out of the next two songs but stuck it out.

Should I Stay or Should I Go sounded really nice and loud. Lots of people danced to that one. We did a medley of Hey Jude into the End into the outro of Layla. People liked it. I love the song the End and I get the privilege of doing the two wacky parts so it's all the better. Somewhere along the way we played Saturday in the Park. That sounded fabulous with Chris and her daughter Meg playing keyboards on that song. Sounded just like the CD.

I got to play bass on Hollywood Died so that was the first time I played bass for any gigs. I find it refreshing to be quite honest. I play bass on My Sharona but we cut it because Jim didn't think it was quite ready. Maybe at the next gig.

So we finished up at 10:30pm as scheduled. I didn't bother tearing down my stuff for another half hour or so. Instead, some kids came up and were talking to me about “I just got a guitar” and they were asking questions. Joe was over by his drums and kids were over there asking him questions. It felt good to see they kids having an interest in music.

The tear down, as usual, was no fun. Stuff everywhere and it all has to go. After about an hour of that I was sweating bullets again. That necessitated some more cold ones. At about midnight the band left but I knew many of the people there so I hung out and talked with them until 2am. I didn't realize it was that late so I went home.

I asked one of the guys there if we were playing his block party as we did two years earlier. He said he hired another band for $400 and they rock. Last year we didn't play because he hired (what he later told us) two band that sucked. I thought we were for sure playing his block party. Oh well, we will have to get a gig somewhere else.

All in all, I had a great time with No Trace. :D I wish I had some pictures but I didn't take anyone. I'll have to see if anybody took any.