I did a gig last night at an upscale DC restaurant, a wedding. Had me scratching my head before I even walked in. Get to the address and it says it's the local utility company. After looking around I find the restaurant at the end of the block. Not sure how they assigned addresses there.The setup area was in what appeared to be a very illogical place, back in a 30x30 area in the rear, away from the dance floor. Next to the kitchen and apparently away from the main air conditioning.
Just as I was going back out to bring my rig in, a major thunderstorm came through. Had to wait 30 minutes before I could go back out without getting soaked (I was early so it wasn't a big deal). This was a wedding gig with my main agency band and we got the heads up that the setup space would be tight so at least that part was anticipated. Hey, at least it was right by an exterior door but... the wedding party had set up a small partition at the entrance to the space well inside the door. They were just hanging around there but we couldn't go straight to it, had to walk to the other end of the restaurant, through the kitchen and come up just on the other side of the partition.
Since i knew the space was tight and we have a excellent soundman with an excellent setup, I brought my smallest gigging rig, an AER Basic Performer. It's never let me down. The keyboard player was going to do a solo cocktail set and they told him to setup in the band area. I had nothing better to do so I accompanied him, I know it can really free up the player if he doesn't have to concentrate on carrying the bass lines in that context. We do about thirty minutes and the band leader tells him they want him to setup on the other end of the restaurant and play for 1:15 and the band would be starting about two hours later than originally planned (same stop time). Surprise (but not the fun one). I told him I'd help him move his gear and play over there too, I ran through his keyboard amp and that was cool, we had fun and the time went by quickly. Turns out I got paid extra for that.
When we finally got around to doing our first set that's when the surprise happened for me. We hadn't done a sound check, hadn't been particularly impressed with the locale and when we started the first set, on the very first song, we had one of the most amazing live mixes I'd had in a long time and we usually have pretty good mixes but too often the venue doesn't contribute anything positive to it. This time everything and I do mean everything, every nuance was crystal clear and full sounding. I used my six string Brubaker JXB6 jazz bass (the one in my avatar) and through that little AER combo with some light sound reinforcement it sounded as close to perfect as it gets IME. Live recording worthy.
We had bass, keys, drums, guitar, trombone, trumpet and tenor sax with three vocalists and everything sat perfectly in the onstage mix. That sound immediately brought a smile to my face. Abnormally good sound is always a welcome thing, kind of like the stars all aligned. I had already done a very high energy church service that morning and I wasn't expecting anything out of the ordinary on this holiday weekend wedding, just kind of looking to get paid and go home. What I got was a day of having fun playing music vs. another day on the job.
