Three hours later, there we were, pulling up next to the stage in our van (with a U-Haul). We set up, soundchecked, and ate. Then we were off!
The gig posed two main problems for me. First, the cold weather made my EWI react differently. As you probably know, the thing senses breath and translates that into volume. When the weather is hot and humid (aka "Atlanta"), it's necessary to turn down the sensitivity, or the thing plays itself. These leads to really annoying problems like the accidental transmission of MIDI data to my laptop. Boo. Last night's cold and dry (aka "winter") isn't any better or worse, but I need to reset the thing to account for the cool, dry air.
The second problem, is of course, the tuning of wind instruments when the outside temperature is somewhere below 50, as it was last night. Since I'm usually picking a saxophone once or twice a set, the thing is ice cold, and thus 20 cents flat (at least later on in the night). So...push in! The problem is that while I'm playing and the horn heats up, the pitch rises, so I start solos flat and nasty, and end up trying to play one handed and wrestle the mouthpiece into a better spot. Again I say--boooo! Then I put it down, and the next time I have to play, the whole process begins again.
Soundcheck:
Other than that, it was pretty easy. The crowd was fine...what can I say about college seniors at a small private college (population 1,600). They've already got the expensive attitudes.
The sound was great, by the way. Everything on stage sounded good. However, I think the general opinion was that the back corner (behind Bencuya) was sinking, and the longer we played, the more it appeared that I was uphill from him. Weird.
We returned to Avatar at 3:45 AM to discover that Mark Dannells' car window had been shattered and his very nice Egnater 1x12 extension cabinet had been stolen. Again, what can I say...people who do stuff like this need to be reprogrammed. Dannells cursed the surrounding neighborhood at the top of his lungs for a good five minutes. We hung out until the police showed up and filed the report. Anyone with ANY information should contact the Atlanta Police Department immediately: (404) 614-6544.
Saturday, Please Pleaserock Me played the Decatur Beer Festival. It was pretty good. After all the gigs we've played at Smith's Oldest Bar and Park Tavern, it was nice to be on a stage where we (the horns) weren't shoulder to shoulder. Special thanks to Greg Lee for deciding what should be in our monitor mix. He had his own mix (and monitor), but he insisted on having the monitor guy put what he wanted in our box. Not too cool. This is not my first wedge, and I know what I want to hear. Between Greg's monitor, Dannells' monitor, and the live sound on stage, I'm not sure what we would have missed if we'd only had the horns in our mix. Maybe Greg can explain that some time. Guest blogger?
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