Ok. My little village had this halloween party last night. A bluegrass band played for a couple of hours, and me and this other guy were going to close by playing some blues covers and rock covers till the end of the night. I've played with this guy once before, but only for about 30 minutes or so at a summer gathering, and he seemed like a competant guitarist, he knew his theory, he's about 30 years older than me, generally trustworthy to pull his own weight. We couldn't find a local drummer, so it was just going to be bass and guitar with this other guy singing. The bluegrass folks put on a ripping set, playing for about 4 or 5 hours. Me and this other guy hit the stage soon after, and people are absolutely blitzed by this point, and a bit weary of root five action. My gear is all setup, i hit my tuner one last time, then wait for this other guy to start tuning. He starts playing some buddy holly tune immediately, I can hear the chords ringing out those out of tune waves the whole time, but I manage to figure out the progression about a minute in and make it ok. It pretty much continues like this for another hour or so, I notice that he is drunker than hell, and we're playing songs like gloria and knights in white satin, when I was under the impression we were going to be playing blues primarily. I don't have a problem with that stuff, but it's not like we got together and practiced or anything, i didn't even have a songlist with chords written out, the blues being fairly simple (if you want them to be that is) makes a no practice gig with unknown members a bit easier. Anyways, I push through this, and being sober, it wasn't too hard, just kind of discouraging when I'm playing the wrong notes because we're playing some tune i've never even heard before. The guys rythym was terrible as well, i kept stamping my foot harder and harder, trying to get him into the right time, but I don't think he would've noticed anything short of a sledgehammer to the head. The crowd probably didn't notice, and this being a free gig for both halloween just so I could play in my home village, it didn't really matter as much anyways. Damn, I'm no professional musician, playing in my college's Jazz band is my only gig right now, but this guy was a nightmare. Just thought I'd share last night with you all
It was cool to play for a bunch of people who didn't even know I was a bass player though.
