This week has been relatively pain free after last weekend's crucible.
Most of the focus has been on the U2 stuff. We did two rehearsals; one on Tuesday, and then a wrap up one on Thursday to check everything. Both went well--everything sounded big and powerful. After doing some more research, the guitar guys (Greg and Dannells) ironed out their respective parts a little more clearly. Now it's up to Nick--this Bono stuff is super humanly high to sing, and a whole set might kill a lesser vocalist. We lowered most of the keys a half step, but it's still tough stuff.
Last night at the 10 High was pretty good. As usual, the first set was really tight; everybody played well. I did crash and burn on my solo to Reminiscing--things we going well, I was following a cool succession of ideas, and then my hands couldn't keep up with my head anymore, and that was it.
I played my best palm slide ever on the organ part to Thunder Island. Ever. I think I'm going to make a point of high fiving myself for things like that.
Also deserving of a high five: Mark Dannells' solos on Reelin' in the Years were on fire! Totally awesome.
On the break, some guy was telling me how good the guitar duet sounded in Reelin' in the Years (Dannells on guitar, me playing the other part on alto sax). He said, "it sounded so good--I couldn't tell where the other guitar was coming from, and then I looked over and saw you playing!" I said, "I guess if you didn't notice that it wasn't a guitar, then it sounded right." He said, "it sounded great. What patch were you using?" Huh? I played along…"it was my 'saxophone' patch." "That sound was perfect. It sounded like a guitar." Thanks, I think.
The second set was a slow descent into silliness, led by Cobb's Roland drum pad. By the time we got to the end, I was playing the tenor solo to Old Time Rock and Roll (we got multiple requests for Bob Seger last night) on EWI (using a bari sax patch) over the verse to Lido Shuffle. Then Hans (the sound guy) took it one step further and used his pitch shifter to destroy my synth build up on that tune. Crazy. We amuse ourselves.
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