Last night at the 10 High was Yacht Rock at full strength. For the past few months, I think at least one person in the band has been out on any given Thursday. We're back!
We were sailing along quite well until the end of the first set, when two Bee Gees songs leapt up and bit me in the butt. The first was Stayin' Alive, which appears to be a simple song--I don't think it's much more than F minor, Bb7, and Eb. The form is really weird, though, particularly later on in the song. There's a tag after the second chorus, and then after the third chorus it does a similar (but different) series of tags, every other one being longer. To further complicate my problems, I'm playing the brass part on EWI and the string part on keyboard, and during those tags it jumps back and forth.
All of this is a bullshit excuse, anyway. I failed miserably regardless of the reason.
Immediately following my own little disco Hindenburg, we went into You Should Be Dancing, which should have been fine because we've played that one a good bit, but the voice in my head was still flipping out about Stayin' Alive, and I couldn't get my head into the next song. All I wanted to do was get off the stage.
I was pretty furious through the break and most of the next set. In two songs, the gig went from something I was excited about to something from which I wanted to run away.
After the gig, Pete came by to ask about all the things I messed up, including a couple of gacked notes (the high F# in Who Can it be Now? being the usual suspect; if I had a setlist in front of me, I could tell you every mistake that I made). That was a fun conversation. It certainly does wonders for my confidence.
Today I'm trying to get Stayin' Alive in my head. I think I've got it (but do I really have it? if somebody else flinches, will I follow them? this remains to be seen). Dealing with this means that I'm not practicing ceremony music for tomorrow's wedding ceremony. Not good. I need a week to reload.
We're playing a wedding reception tonight. I've got to get my head together quickly.
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