Last night I played with the Yacht Rock Schooner in Suwanee (for the first set).
It was a tough situation; the Wild Wind there had morphed into a sports bar for the purposes of the Final Four (R.I.P. Michigan State) with every TV on the game (they even had a screen over the stage with a projector TV going). The soundman was about an hour late to setting up. We were also asked to wait until halftime of the second game before going on.
The end result was that the band was flat. I think it was safe to say that there was very little interest in playing music that night, and it felt like it. There was no crowd and thus no energy from a crowd. It was really bland.
As we trudged through the set, I was mentally diagnosing what was wrong. My conclusion was this: at this point in its existence, that group of musicians does not play for each other--the play for the gig. By comparison, I would say that on any given night with Yacht Rock, I can be interested in what somebody's doing on stage, and I can play to that, whether I'm marveling at Bencuya's keyboard prowess or enjoying Mark Cobb's bubbling creativity (something he would tell you is his way of dealing with boredom on the gig), or how Pete's reacting to what Nick or Greg is doing. We play for our own enjoyment as much as we do for the crowd's enjoyment. And while it's true that we need the vibe from the crowd to really get off, I know that because we like playing together, we can still have fun when the crowd sucks. Last night, the Schooner guys missed this part.
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