The crowd at the Mercy Lounge was ok…maybe a couple of hundred? I won't bother to guess why it wasn't more. Easter? Who knows. The people who were there were pretty enthusiastic, so it was cool. The sound was pretty good, though as before, it got super loud on stage.
I reviewed all of my stuff Friday night and felt good about it; still riding the calm confidence of the previous weekend. My only big flub was coming in two measures early on I Can Dream About You. The whole intro sounds like little two measure things. I guess I miscounted.
Maybe it's the style of the music, but I just can't find Mark Cobb these days. More precisely, I cannot get my stuff to fit into his groove. I don't know why, but what I was playing just didn't feel like it laid right. I tried leaning forward on the time, and that didn't do it. I tried laying back and letting him pull me along…I don't know. He never said anything, so maybe I'm just analyzing it too much.
Speaking of which…Bencuya and I were laughing at Cobb, who told us how every song had a checklist of things he had to do: start the loop on the iPod, change the setting on the drum pad, do this, do that. Welcome to our world!
The second set, we played the Top Gun Theme into Danger Zone, and once again, I turned off my sax mic in anticipation of putting it down, and then realized I needed it again, and almost forgot to turn it back on. Geez. Come on, Freeman! I still can't believe I did that at the Variety show.
Other than that, I was pretty even. The things I was most worried about keyboard-wise (Sweet Freedom, All Night Long) were both fine. Our keyboard buddy in Nashville even made reference to my playing on the latter, so I felt like that was a positive. I did almost forget to play the EWI solo on Sweet Freedom. That would have been a monumental disaster.
We got back to Atlanta in the early afternoon. I took a nap, showered, and headed off to my church gig. Not much to say about it, other than the guitarist and drummer being all over the place on their levels. I was riding the gain of both of them all night. The pianist playing some wrong notes that were accidentally very hip. I was surprised (after not really playing for a week) that my flute felt as good as it did. I hope to get off the keyboards and back on the horns this week.
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