What a weekend!
Thursday was our usual Yacht Rock gig. We added two more songs to our Thriller project, and I think they both went fairly well. It's always hard to tell. You figure out your part ahead of time, but you don't really know if it'll work until you hear in the context of everything else; at that point, you really know if you need to change your sound, volume, or scrap something in favor of another part. With Thriller, it seems like there are more things that two keyboardists and the EWI can physically perform, and so you have to make sure you're grabbing the parts that will be missed the most. That cool part that you had never heard until you really started analyzing the track probably won't be missed as much as the big synth pad.
Friday began waaaaaaaay too early (noon) with a studio call for Yacht Rock. We gathered at Open Sky Studios (in Avatar) to work on a Christmas tune--another mash-up of a Yacht Rock song with a Christmas tune. I don't think I'm at liberty to say what the two tunes are. Also, Dannells wrote a bridge to Happy Birthday. It's in four.
From Open Sky I headed on to Lake Oconee for a gig with Platnumb. A strange corporate gig in a conference room at the Ritz. A weird one for sure. Everyone in the audience was at least 50. We had barely started the first tune (Breezin') when they asked us to turn it down (as in, turn off the P.A.). Then they asked us to stop all together. We returned after they ate, and the gig turned into corporate cabaret. They just sat and stared at us as we paraded song after song before them. At some point in all this, somebody requested Brick House, so we jumped into that, and EVERYBODY got on the dance floor. It was really weird. But, that beat what we were doing, and they stayed out there for the rest of the set. When we came back from the break, there were fourteen people left in the room, and we played for them for another hour.
Saturday morning, Jack had a 10 AM t ball game. It was pretty cold.
When I got home from that, I worked on some stuff for my Yacht Rock gig that night (mostly the strings for All Out of Love by Air Supply). I also pounded on my synth solo for Lido Shuffle (and adjusted my sound for that).
We played in the back of Paris on Ponce in the room called Maison Rouge. It is an extremely neat place...it looks like a nightclub from the thirties. We played one and a half sets. It was super easy. The GREAT news is that I finally NAILED the Lido synth part. I was so pumped I wanted to stop the show and high five everybody in the room. It was so cool!
I think I may have finally won over Bencuya. He's been the main proponent of two keyboards for the gig, while I think everybody else is either on the fence or ok with me doing it. After the gig, Bencuya said he thought we sounded better/just as full as we did two nights earlier with two keyboards. How great is that! That really made my night. His opinion on this subject carries more weight than probably anybody else in the band, so I'm really excited to hear him say that.
Did I mention I nailed the synth solo?
Saxophone-wise, I could hear myself fairly well, and so I had a good night. Good reeds on both horns, though I realize that one of my alto reeds is probably dead. At least, it feels dead compared to the one I played last night.
Tonight is my church gig. I also have to check out some Thriller stuff. It turns out we're only adding two songs tomorrow night for the rehearsal--Beat It and Billy Jean. There probably won't be much for me in either of those.
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