I'm playing with
Melissa Reaves tonight in Blacksburg at Awful Arthur's, starts at 9 PM. I've never met her, never rehearsed with her... so it should be an interesting and challenging evening. She's got a hell of a voice in a Janis Joplin sort of vein. And she can scat like nobody's business. Check out the scatting that starts around 2:40 into
"Think You Need Love".
Even better news is my buddy George Penn (now with
The Sol Creech Band) will be on the skins. He and I played together for years in The Electric Woodshed, so that'll be like puttin' on an old pair of shoes. So the drums and bass will be tight... I don't know about anything else
Personally, I'm stoked to have the need to pull out my big rig. I haven't used my power amp & speaker cabs live for the past 2-3 years. With The Kind, we all use preamps and go direct into the PA. Sometimes I miss having my ears ringing at 2 AM
I use an Alembic F1X preamp and Crest CA6 power amp (2 x 600W) into Genz-Benz 115-XB2 and 410-XB2 cabs. The F1X has a crossover, so I send the lows (usually 150 Hz and below) to the 115. I usually run the 410 full range since that's what I mainly hear when I'm planted in front of the rig. But I'll run the 410 with 150 Hz and above on larger stages, if I can get away from the rig a bit.
The overall effect is pretty impressive. The 410 runnning full range sounds great by itself, but then I bring up the 115 cab's level to reinforce the lows... holy smokes, it slams!!!
Last time I really cranked the whole rig, I was using my Alembic and no pedals. Now I've got my modified Warwick Thumb NT and my big-ass pedal board... it's gonna be a "ho' nova level".
My current band is exactly the same way - we'll rehearse a bunch of songs, then we get to the gig and play a completely different set. We'll whip out songs we've never even played before, sometimes it's great, sometimes it's a trainwreck. But damn it's fun to have to rely on your ears to keep everything on track, and to do it with a group of people who don't freak out when things go in a different direction.
