Tuesday: Yacht Rock played a live session at Paste Magazine in downtown Atlanta. It's more record promo stuff.
I finally feel like I'm getting a good handle on the originals, and all the stuff I've worked on is gelling into a cohesive part that makes sense in my head now. In short, I am finally getting it right. FINALLY! Jeez!
Anyway, here's the show. Nice mix by Kip.
Friday: Remember how last week I flew home and went straight to a rehearsal for The Color Purple? The dress rehearsal was tonight, and it went pretty well. The vocalists are fantastic! We're giving a concert performance only, so there's no staging, but dang...the actors are killing it.
There were a few things, though. First, the Roswell Performing Arts Center is about 60 degrees on stage, which is a little cold, especially sitting in a chair and not moving for a few hours. It also makes tuning a challenge. Second, the audio crew had a lot of trouble getting the three monitors for the band to work(!), and then getting the correct instruments in each. I don't understand why they didn't have everything checked before the musicians even showed up--and then to ask us to come in early on Saturday to help them solve this technical dilemma? Say what? Third, the layout of the band made seeing the music director a challenge--she was so far off to my side (like between 9 and 10 o'clock) that most everything I could see was peripheral. Since I had never played this show with these people, I was trying to go on every physical cue I could get.
Saturday: We played the show in Roswell. Still cold, but the monitor situation was a little better. My solution was to point the speaker away from myself and listen to the drummer's wedge instead (which was lots of piano), and I turned my chair towards the music director as much as I could without looking like I was sitting sideways on stage. Made it through just fine.
Sunday: Same show, different room! Our second/final performance was at Actor's Express, a small theatre in the King Plow Arts Center (many a wedding have I played at King Plow!). We had an afternoon rehearsal/tech run-through, which ended early because the audio guy had everything dialed in before we got there. Imagine that!
This show was on headphones. The band was in the wing overlooking the stage, set up in a line...in the dark, so no visual cues! The music director did have a talk-back microphone in our ears, though, so we got count-offs and stuff that way.
And that was that! Saw an old friend, made some new friends, got a little better at playing clarinet. It was a fun gig! And I made it home in time to see the second half of the Super Bowl, which was about as much as I can handle these days.
