Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Kick it Up for American Water!

I played a private gig for a bunch of public water commissioners last night at the High with Tyrone Jackson and Kevin Smith.  I guess that's how you'd describe them--CEOs of water companies?  Tyrone asked the bartender for three bottles of water for the band, and the guy said, "Not tonight!  These are tap water people!"

We were in a different room from last week, but the same acoustics applied.  We tried to get them to let us set up across the room,

but instead they set us right against the tables so they could use the keyboard later on in the night.



The gig began with solo saxophone, which seemed kind of dumb because the rest of the band was right next to me.  I thought it'd only be a song or two, but it somehow stretched into an entire HOUR of solo saxophone.  The crowd finally made their way to the tables and sat down, and we transitioned to trio.  From there, we played about an hour and fifteen minutes.

I don't think any of us played particularly well.  The combination of trying to keep the volume down coupled with the numbness of sitting around too long before the gig made us all play like we were kind of bored.  There was no energy, so we kind of dragged each other through the gig.



We took a break for the speeches and the little show they'd prepared.  Very weird.  The piano player wrote lyrics(a1-a4 on the player above)...when it seemed like it couldn't get any worse, one guy popped a karaoke CD in the player and sang Proud to be an American (a5).  I guess putting a nationalistic bow on the bullshit always works.  Who knew water was so patriotic?

The three of us sat on the opposite of the room, howling with laughter and cheering them on.  After our patriotism had been inflamed, the crowd dispersed.

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