Sooo...yeah...another Beatles gig! I guess we just played a bunch of Beatles stuff at the Variety a few weeks back, but so much music has come and gone since then, it feels like it was longer ago--which is to say that nothing felt like "Oh yeah, we just played this." It was more like "Is this how we played this?" Hooray for charts.
Two things I took from this gig:
1. Using an iPad for charts. Successful. I could see, the thing didn't crash, the page turn thing was no big deal. It definitely does what I want. I wouldn't necessarily use it on this gig since there's a trumpet player reading paper charts right next to me, but the experiment proved to me that it's now an option.
I forgot that the last time we were here, the air conditioner vents directly over us would occasionally kick on and blow our charts everywhere. The iPad did not move! (duh). We had to hold our charts down with wallets and cell phones. Really annoying.
2. My horn chart for Oh Darling. Nick requested that we put a little more soul into McCartney's tune by adding horns in place of the background vocals (and generally just laying into everything a little more). Also successful. I really liked the horn parts. It sounded better on the gig than soundcheck, so I think in another gig or two it'll really sound solid. This one got an especially good reaction from the crowd, though I think that was mostly due to Nick's outstanding vocal performance.
Octopus' Garden was particularly good tonight.
Kip on sound and Zach on monitors. Looooooooove having our own guys running sound.
Not much else to say. This gig has a DJ before and after. I can't say what the appropriate music proceeding a Beatles show should be, but the mix of 80s pop rock and white suburbanite approved hip hop didn't do it for me. Cranking that same shit up immediately after the gig made me flee like the building was on fire (and the lighting guy punishing me with strobe lights while I was packing up was also encouraging). I was gone in record time.
Next Please Pleaserock Me gigs are February 20 (at Smith's Olde Bar) and then April 24 (at Variety Playhouse). In the mean time, don't forget to come see the Greg Lee Show this coming Tuesday at Eddie's Attic!
