I Gotta Interesting Gig Tomorrow Nite!

[Gard]

Tomorrow night the band I'm in is backing up two "semi-legends" - John Fred (of John Fred and the Playboys - "Judy In Disguise") and Jean Knight (had a minor hit with "Mr. Big Stuff", which was also used recently in a Burger King commercial here in the US) are playing at a party in New Orleans, with us as their backup band.

We did a rehearsal with John last week, and he was great. For someone who's "been there done that" he was very helpful and patient, polite to a fault almost. Looking forward to working with him. The band has also worked with Jean in the past (prior to my joining) and I've been told there will be many "Kodak moments" to look forward to there. It should be an interesting evening, I'll post afterwards and let y'all know how it went.

[TCollins]

When I was in HS, we played in a "Battle Of The Bands"-we won. The BIG prize was to be the "opening act" for a band called "The Cufflinks" which was also the voices of the Sat. moring cartoon series "The Archies" --we called it "bubblegum music". Still, it was a lot of fun. I remember the bass player (the Cufflinks) getting trashed on Yukon Jack backstage. The teenyboppers went NUTS when they opened their act...cannot even recall ONE of their songs now.

[brewer9]

Those sound like fabulous gigs. Are the cufflinks the group who recorded "Sugar Sugar"?

[Hambone]

Hey, I had that record. What was it 1968? I cut it out of the back of a box of Sugar Pops or something like that.

[Jennifer]

Gard - You ever gonna tell us how your interesting gig went?

[Gard]

Originally posted by Jennifer
Gard - You ever gonna tell us how your interesting gig went?

WHOOPS!!!

I had a blast, it was really nice. The venue provided both sound and lights, so all I had to do was set my amp up and plug in, no PA, no mikes, no monitors, guy could get spoiled that way .

We (just my band, Stormy) played 3 tunes by ourselves as a warmup, then John Fred came on. His set went pretty smoothly, other than the one time I started a tune in the wrong key! Gotta remember to make those notes to myself at rehearsals instead of just ASS/U/ME-ing I'll remember to change my notes!

Then we played a few more tunes after John Fred's set on our own. The gig was arranged by a guy named Leon Medica, who is/was the bassist for band called Louisiana's LeRoux. Some of you may have heard their "big hit", "New Orleans Ladies", around here of course it was a rock-radio staple for ever (still is).

Anyhow, Leon got up with the band to play "N. O. Ladies", then decided to stay up for Jean Knight, so I only played half the gig, then wandered around with a digital camera taking pictures of the band onstage. (Got paid for the whole gig though ).

After Jean's set was over, we took a short break, then I got back up and we played 3 more songs, ended the gig with Tower Of Power's "Soul Vaccination", always a fun tune to do.

Easy load out at the end of the night, the venue even had a large freight elevator in the room, we just backed our band trailer up to it, put everything on the elevator, ran it down, loaded the trailer and off we went. There is a picture of me from that gig up in the Basses forum in the bass photo thread, they had the coolest backdrop on the stage.

[Jennifer]

Sounds like that went really well! BTW, do you get carded much? You look so young in that picture! It's the music that keep us young, eh?

[Gard]

Jennifer -

I hope it's the music that's doing it, maybe it's the drug-free living, or not drinking myself into a stupor (at least not too often ) helping things along as well?

I keep threatening to shave the goatee off (I found a grey hair in my 'stache last week!!! ), but the wife won't let me 'cuz she thinks then I'll look TOO young at gigs . Can't have that now, can we?

Yes, the gig did go well BTW, lotta fun.