Aguilar Amplification Announces Clinic with Bassist Alissia Benveniste

Man, I wish I could go to this.

Anyone on TB able to go?

 

I'm going! It's 5 minutes from my office

 

You best not be frontin'!

 

So...how was it?

 

I thought it was really good - it was my first clinic ever but performances was on point, solid Q+A opportunities, small crowd, overall intimate setting (my preference). Met expectations - would go again! Dudes at aguilar were cool too.

 

So what happens at a clinic? What was a rough breakdown of the sequence of events?

 

I got there a bit late, but there's about a period of 30 minutes between doors open (6:30pm) and the official "start" time of the clinic.

In the main room there were two basses (I don't recall if they were both F basses, but I know one was for sure), Aguilar amplification TH350 hooked up to two Aguilar cabs, and, of course, their line of pedals. During this time there was chatting among people - small talk, what'd you expect. Didn't see anyone actually playing the basses or testing gear but the option was there.

Everyone was then led to a smaller room at 7:00 with good lighting, a small setup of gear upfront, and rows of foldable chairs were setup and I'll post a pic from my view in a bit.

Mike Hampton strolled in and no one clapped, I'll be honest I didn't realize who it was at first, then he made a comical statement, he walked out and strolled in again.

Then the rest of the band strolled in and started playing a couple songs. They were surprised at the amount of people who showed up as it was a rainy day. After that they opened the floor to a open ended Q+A, there was a brief moment of silence until the first person mustered up the courage to ask a question. After a couple questions they played more songs, a mix of originals and covers (a P-Funk cover because of Mike Hampton). Then more questions, then more songs to close out. Questions ranged from being a female bass player, to gear, to just general song composition - there was also several gear plugs about what Alissia was using.

After, wrapping up around 8:27pm, the band took a pic with the Aguilar Guy, a couple folks lingered for photos and to chat, the band was great and very friendly. Their singer (Instagram @rickexpress) also frequently performs in the area, follow his Instagram for details.

Hope this covers what you're looking for. It felt like a small interactive intimate concert - and it was free, what more could you ask for. Aguilar did a good job in arranging this.

 

That covers it, as I had no idea what happened. It is funny that no one recognized Mike Hampton (I'm not saying that I would). Since it was free, about how many people did show up? Did you ask any questions? Did you learn anything?

I hope go to something like that one day.

 

Thanks to that instagram reference you put, I found this.

 

Turn up was pretty solid - really I don't remember how many people exactly showed up, I wanna say around 25. I asked a pretty open question about composition. I think it was pretty cool, personally, didn't learn too much - but it was pretty cool and gave a bit of a spark of inspiration for someone who hasn't played too much recently.