Saturday, April 16, 2011

Dress Rehearsal


Thursday night was the big dress rehearsal for the gig this Saturday at the Variety Playhouse.  I tried to balance getting plenty of sleep, taking care of errands, and practicing the stuff until I couldn't get it wrong;  not so successful on Thursday afternoon.  I had a small meltdown in the hour or so before I left for the gig, and I got so tense I couldn't play or remember half the stuff.

We set up and fiddled through stuff at soundcheck.  I was kind of poking at things I could sort of play and aggravating the growing knot in my shoulder.  Once we got going on the gig, I quickly settled in, though.  I was actually playing pretty well!  There were flubs and stuff I forgot, but I was pretty even keeled about it.  The only disaster was Maniac, and that was only because I didn't move well from section to section in the song.  On break, I felt kind of relieved.

The second set was not so hot.  We began with the Top Gun Theme and moved directly into Danger Zone.    I forgot about the sax solo at the end of Danger Zone, but I needed to have thought of it at the beginning of Top Gun--I play two handed stuff all the way through each song.  Definitely a problem.  Eventually, I just picked a spot to stop playing and grab my horn.  From there, we went into I Want a New Drug;  my reed was uncooperative.  The song after that was True, and I hadn't thought about that song at all, and so that was sloppy as I kind of felt around for the chords I had forgotten.  The Heat is On had a couple of errant note the first time through the riff.  By the time we got down to the end of the set, I felt like I'd taken the SATs again.  I was fried.

Packing up was really slow.  I just wanted my brain to relax.

Friday was my only day to gather up my 80s movie character costume.  Mission accomplished.  I did some desk work things;  I did my laundry (no clean underwear).  At long last, I plowed through the set list song by song and made sure I had my stuff together.  I feel good.  I'm poised to kick some ass tomorrow night.

Along the way this week, I cut up the remainder of my trio gig video.  You can view everything I recorded on my YouTube channel.  Here's a link to the trio gig playlist.  Watch and enjoy.

davidfreemanmusic.net