I think this was one of our best Purple Rain performances. I felt really solid on everything (except for the beginning of Baby I'm a Star, where I'd managed to accidentally shift the keyboard up and octave and turn on the tremolo--I played half the verse staring at my keyboard---"What the hell is happening?"). Our only trouble was at the end of Baby I'm a Star. I finished on time, but there were a couple of random notes sprinkled in among the rest of my bandmates!
The second set was all yacht rock stuff. Really mediocre saxophone solos on this gig. Booooo.
Other big news on this gig...in ear monitors! I used my new IEMs for the first time on this gig (Mark Cobb used his as well). They're really nice and comfortable and sound fantastic! I think, though, that I need to start from scratch on my mix--Zach (our monitor guy) gave me a mix as a starting place, but I tweaked it until everything sounded weird (the vocals were nothing but reverb), and my keyboards hit the limiter repeatedly (the limiter keeps the volume from spiking and blowing my eardrums, but if your instrument keeps hitting it, you have no dynamics). I remember now from my previous experience of using in ears that I should set my stuff up so it can be plenty loud without maxing out, and then build the other instruments around it. It's going to take some time, but I'm really looking forward to it. I can already see that once we get the mixes dialed in, it will be hard to play without them.
One other thing...boxed water! Someone brought us a box of boxed water, under the guise of a birthday present for Pete. Sneaky.
Much less plastic. I can dig that.
