A few weeks ago I got asked to play another low volume cover band gig with Sid and Eric. Sid is cool so far in that he leads with how much he'd pay. Easy hook at that time. He offered $500 for 3 ten song sets. 20 of the songs I already played with him in October, so I had to learn 10 new ones. Of those 10 songs, I already played 2 with Sunset Grooves ("Escape (Pina Colada Song)" and "Listen to the Music"), and the others I was sort of familiar with.
I made the Spotify playlist and got to work learning structures of tunes. We met once at Sid's house last weekend for an hour and that was that.
Last night, the gig was scheduled for a local law office's holiday party at the Edgewater Hotel. Being that it was a holiday gig, I wasn't sure what to wear. Being a "tech bro," I long ago got rid of any formal clothes. I asked the other guys and they were wearing black on black. I don't have any good black pants, so I went with dark green jeans, a red button down and a grey blazer that came off during the first set. Plus, both Marci and Haley said this was the better look than the greenish blazer I also tried on.
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| the lewk |
Load in was at 5pm, but surprisingly enough, traffic wasn't too bad. It was raining pretty good, though, and that made for a dumb commute to the hotel. Luckily, the law firm paid for all three of us to be valet parked (the only way the Edgewater rolls, I guess) and after unloading the car, the valet handled the rest.
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| Pulling up to the venue |
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| Valet parking, not gonna complain. |
I brought my 84 L1K (the Hog) with flats, my 99 MIM P with flats, my Trace and my 212. I have a 15" that may have better suited this gig size-wise, but it would've cost me another trip, that I didn't want to take. But with the 212 and its wheels, all I needed was one trip to get me upstairs to the Alki room, where we were playing.
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| TE GP12, Avatar 212, basses, SansAmp BDDI |
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| SansAmp I haven't used in years, tuner only sometimes works |
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Put the bass in the corner
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The room was no big deal. And there was no view out the windows because it's just water. During the day? Probably spectacular. At night in the dark? Nothing to write home about. Seems weird to book a party there if you can't see the view.
The law firm was small, there were about 20-25 people there. We started playing through our set as people were coming in. Eric played with brushes and I had my volume dialed way low. Sid sang and played what he needed to. People were able to talk and the volume overall was tolerable. It was an interesting gig as we were just background music. One guy did watch Sid and comment on his playing (Sid is a whiz on guitar), but for the most part, we were just there. Given the lack of interaction from the patrons, I wonder if they wished to have hired a DJ instead?
Anyway, we played through 10 songs. I played pretty well and overall, we were pleased with how it went. At this time, dinner was being served and we were fortunate enough to be fed as well. We ate our dinners (Cesar salad, steak, some dessert) and were ready to go, but the party planner wanted her teams to be able to chat, so we sat.
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| Steak was nice |
A bit after that, they decided to liven things up by playing what was likely the world's lamest trivia game. Questions like, "How many seasons did Seinfeld run?" and, "What NFL player was nicknamed 'The Sheriff'?" Crazy lame, but they got into it and I'm just a bitter old man.
After that snooze fest, we finally got up to play some more, but they requested some Xmas tunes. Luckily, Sid has a book full of tunes and he and Eric tore it up on some classics. He didn't want to throw me a curveball last week with more tunes to learn, so I stood there like the world's hottest non-playing bassist for a few songs. I suppose I could've chimed in by ear on stuff like "Jingle Bells" and "Frosty the Snowman," but as Sid does hit the bass notes with fingerpicking, I didn't want to muddy things up and mess up a good thing.
We only played a few more songs after that and then they called it. So, for a 30 song set, we ended up playing maybe 18, with about 5-7 guitar/drums Xmas songs thrown in. Either way, Sid got paid, and I'mma getting paid tomorrow in cash (Sid don't believe in Venmo, PayPal, etc). I got fed and was home by 10pm, so overall, not a bad night's work.
Gear worked out great. The L1K did what it needed to. I had my SABDDI that I hadn't used in years as I wanted to travel light and easy. The Korg tuner I have on it has been working intermittently for years as well. It worked at first, but then it took a dump for whatever reason. I guess it's time to bust out my soldering kit that I have never used.
Performance-wise, I played well. Songs like "Pump It Up," "All Star," and "What I Like About You" all came out fine. It was weird sort of playing them at 50% volume and energy, but it's what they wanted. We did to some blues songs like "Lay Down Sally," "Pride and Joy," and less bluesy, but still walking lines, "Moondance." They ended up being fine and I enjoyed it, but it was a little out of my comfort zone.
Anyway, that's that and I think that's a wrap on live shows, unless there's a surprise somewhere.
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| Me and Eric |
Oh yeah, this morning, I found this in the passenger footwell of my car. I assume it belonged to the valet. Now it's in the trash. Bummer, it was unopened.
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| Promise this is not mine |
Next up, Planets sometime in March 2025. Stay tuned.
