What a weekend! I did a bunch of church gigs over the Christmas holidays.
The first couple of gigs were mainly flute (and a little soprano) at a church I used to play at. They brought me in to help cover some of the extra services they were having. It was super easy, and a lot of fun. Most of the songs were Christmas carols, and most of the people I played with old friends (other than the douchebag pianist who mistakenly thought it really funny to mimic my flute warm ups). So yeah, it was cool. We laughed a lot.
The third Christmas Eve gig was at my usual first gig on Sundays. That one was fun, too, though a little annoying that they had us show up an hour and fifteen minutes early, and then we mostly stood around until the service began. At one point, they turned out all the lights and everybody held candles--I was thinking, "This would be a great picture for my blog!" but I didn't take it. It was pretty cool, though.
I was super amused by one spot where the leader said, "I'm going to play during this part. Don't feel like you need to play. If you want to, you can, but if you don't, that's good." Twice he stressed being gentle. His request sounded to me like "Don't play unless you ABSOLUTELY can't stand it."
I laid out. The guitarist laid out. Three BEATS into the song, the bass player was in, doing his Jimmy Haslip impersonation! Actually, that wasn't bad, but then the drummer felt like he HAD to play, and I thought it really squashed the vibe. I was amused, annoyed, and smug all at once.
Christmas morning, I did two more of the flute/soprano services at the Christmas church number one. Same stuff, same fun. There were lots of people there who were very happy to see me, which I appreciated. Hopefully they'll be able to find some money in their budget to see me more often!
Sunday is back to normal. It's been a nice weekend of something different.
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