Yacht Rock played the 10 High last night. We billed it as "Happy Endings Night"--the usual songs, but probably with mangled endings. Once we got on stage, I don't think we were that interested in the endings; maybe we were ONLY focused on the endings. Whatever…Bencuya was recording, and I think we felt pressured to come up with something funny, but couldn't quite do it.
I had a pretty good night; I even made it halfway through the first song before I remembered that the recorder was there! The entire night I would forget about it, remember it, forget about, remember it…or play well, play well, play well, screw up, remember the recorder, beat myself up for the rest of the song, forget it, play well, play well, play well, brain fart! That kind of thing.
I got my pedal a little closer to sounding good. Here's a comparison of the sax thing in Reminiscing (the original and then us). I have the harmony programmed into it. This is the best it has sounded.
Reminsc comparison by David B Freeman
Not too shabby! In making that little demo, I noticed that I'm playing a wrong note in the strings. Oops.
Here's my solo…
Reminiscing solo by David B Freeman
I screwed up the intro to My Life. Spaced out for a second.
We premiered Whatever Gets You Through the Night tonight. I should have recorded myself at soundcheck…I could been the stunt double for Lenny Pickett! On the gig, though, I sucked real bad. Too many weird notes. For instance, the end of the opening solo, I didn't land on the down beat on a G like I was supposed to, so I played an E and then a G, just…dumb stuff. The whole song went like that. I wanted to nail it, but I couldn't quite get my playing to line up.
On Heart of Rock and Roll, some of my harmony stuff worked and some did not. What I'm finding out with programming my effects pedal (I think) is that I have to chop the EQ to keep the harmonizer from trying to harmonize stage noise. Makes sense.
Here's the sax solo and some of the harmony part:
Heart of Rock and Roll (sax solo) by David B Freeman
In the second set, we played Pina Colada super fast…like it was a samba. The crowd did not like it.
What else, what else…I think I was OK on everything else. I went back to a conventional reed tonight on alto instead of the synthetic, which was starting to feel too soft. The Fibracells are great, but you've definitely got to up an entire number (if you play 3's, order 4's!). The alto reed I've been playing is great, but it chokes when I really lean into it.
Beatles tonight at Smith's, then back to Yacht Rock on Saturday!
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