My Weekend:
Friday:
On Friday I had 2 shows, @ 2 venues, w/2 bands. That was a first for me. I've done 2 bands in one night at the same venue, and two shows in one night with the same band at different venues (both having done different clubs, and doing the club/afterparty thing), but never 2 different bands at 2 different venues.
The first, "partial" show, the Cinnamon Hill (acoustic/folk rock) thing downtown, didn't really fly. We set up on their outside patio, but used power from the light poles rather than running long lines back into the cafe. Apparently the light poles don't power up until dusk, when the outside lamp posts come on. So, we had everything hooked up, but for awhile no power. Then they futzed with the system so long I ended up playing only 3 or 4 songs and having to split. Still, fun. Played mandolin only, lined in to PA.
The set on bass with Pedagogy (originals keyboard rock trio with players from my church praise band) thereafter went OK, no major snafus but sometimes it was hard to see my cheats and I had to cover/guess what I was missing. Fortunately not too much of that. As usual for this band, I played my Peavey T-40, as the band leader likes its looks and I likes its sounds!
It was a benefit for Habitat for Humanity, so it was all good. I think I may've hurt myself moving my Ampeg SVT 8x10 cab though. Didn't want to use it, but tried out all 3 bass cabs I have, with both bass heads, and the only one that didn't rattle was the fridge. Which is weird because I've used my 1x15 before w/no probs, but couldn't get it to sound worth a darn at the office before I left for the night out.
Had to get up early Saturday morning, so I split after our (Pedagogy's) opening set.
Saturday:
Sat. morning I took a friend of my son Jack back to his house after the kid's lock-in at church the night before, then took Jack to flag football, getting there more or less on time at 8:30 a.m. Game was at nine. I was afraid they might get blown out because the other team was a lot bigger/taller, but they did a good job and won 14-6. A LOT of goal-line stands by the defense. Jack got 3 pulls (tackles), two in one series, so he played pretty well.
After getting home I rested a bit, had some lunch, and went to a free open-air show that was part of the "Feathers Music Conference," which actually kind of focuses on various forms of electronica/dance music, but also had some live bands.
Saw 2 bands, at least semi-knew one person in each band, though I'd never seen either band before. Nice day with perfect weather, had a couple beers and shot the bull with some local scenesters who are long-time acquaintances/friends of mine. Took notes/photos and will write up for my music column in the "Our Town: Gainesville" mag. I can't believe I get 75 bucks per column for blathering about fun shows.
Some pics, here are locals the Ex-Boogeymen, doing the garage rock thing, the lead singer had the whole Peter Wolf/David Johanssen/Nuge manic stage rant down:
(sorry about the Spanish Moss in this'un):
From Ocala, south of Gainesville, Vincent Valentine, doing the post-punk/gothy thing:
After the bands, I drove back out of town to Casa Krashpad, had some eats, then drove back into town for the 7:30-? show on the cafe patio. Again, lined in the mandolin, but since our electric guitar player wasn't going to be there, also brought my little Super Champ XD for guitar, and lined that out to the PA as well. My wife and a couple of her girlfriends came out, plus a couple of her students, and an additional couple who are friends stopped by, by chance, when the film series at the Hippodrome Theatre next door let out.
It was a bit cool out, but other than that I had a GREAT time. Our keyboardist wasn't able to make it until the second half of the evening, and prior to his arrival, I mainly (possibly entirely) played mandolin. Before he got there, at one point our acoustic guitarist walked off at the end of a song, followed by our bassist. No announcement to the band as to why.
I figured they just decided to take a pee break (we played one long continuous several-hour set with individuals leaving for beers or to pee as necessary). Later found out that there was more band drama I was oblivious to, he had got fed up with the gal singer over song selection, and decided to cool his jets offstage. Meanwhile, the gal singer announces "Brian and I are going jam for a little" and she moved over to keyboards and we played some simple chord changes to fill the gap. As with the drama at our show the previous Wednesday, I only learned exactly what was going after the end of the performance.
After the keyboardist arrived we really went into high gear, as the song selection was not so important, since we weren't trying to play "around" his gap. At that point I got started to be asked (by Tom, the acoustic guitarist/singer and unofficial stage leader) to play guitar about every third song or so. Played my Tex-Mex Telecaster Special (LP Classic was available but stayed cased):
I had never played any of the songs on guitar before, not even in practice. However, I did have my mando cheats for chord changes, but for the most part simply did some added flourishes based on the key, and took solos when I got the nod. Under the circumstances I was VERY pleased with the results, and I know that Chuck (keyboardist) and Tom were too. Afterward Tom had said the guitar work was "phenomenal," which is about as far into the realm of hyperbole as you can get, but given that it came from another guitarist, and a bandmate in the band I've most recently joined, I was glad to hear it anyhow. I even played bass (a sweet older Jazz I need to ask the particulars about) on one song where the bassist went to the can.
My wife and her friends really enjoyed the show and stayed to the end of the night, and are planning on coming to our next show in April. I went back to Casa Krashpad but couldn't sleep for another couple hours, too amped up.
Sunday:
Only had 2 songs for the praise band. In this band I play electric lead guitar and mandolin (my daughter, forumite HEK here, plays bass), but only played guitar on this week's songs. One was a mellow one as part of a baptism. The praise band leader (PBL) wanted to spice it up by having me add a rocking lead to it, but I nixed the idea because I knew it was an important day to the parents, and didn't want them to feel like we were being disrespectful of the occasion. Kids today!
The second one was a rocking song, although stuck at the start of our Communion music. We did it as rocking as ever, but cut the outro solo we usually do, in deference to it being a Communion song. We may end up getting flack about that, even cutting out the outro, we'll see.
Each song had a screw-up at the start of it. For the baptism song, the church bulletin had it listed in the wrong place, so our PBL started the song, and the pastor goes, "Actually, we'll sing that AFTER the baptism," and made a joke about how we obviously REALLY wanted to play the song. It was a good cover on the pastor's part and everyone laughed, including us. Nice save.
The second was more minor. I was supposed to start the rocking song by doing a chord progression with distortion and some palm muting, but forgot to put the distortion on. That sounded terrible, but I had to wait a couple bars for a repeat to make it sound intentional; though after that the song did rock out nicely.
Just lazed around the rest of Sunday. Did some laundry folding and watched some telly. I was beat!
Weekend Report (3 gigs + church service played!) 
Looking at those pictures it is always nice to see clueless bands with their PA cabs set right on the ground. 
