Getting 5 adults to get together and rehearse can be an exercise in futility. Schedules rarely cooperate, especially when it's for a band, so ya know what? Forget rehearsal!
We'll do it live!
A friend of mine who books bands for the Maverick Casinos in Wendover and Elko, Nevada reached to me and asked if I could play bass for a party band this last weekend. The catch with these bands is that there are no rehearsals. You get the
setlist, you show up, you play the gig. This sort of thing requires a lot of studied preparation, a healthy amount of experience, and really keeps you on your toes.
So, Friday rolls around and I head out into the desert with nothing but a suitcase, a Yamaha BB735,
my pedalboard, and a pair of IEMs.
Friday night's crew is a guitar player I've played with before who is fantastic, a couple singers I've never worked with but knew through mutual friends, and a drummer I had never met before. We got set up, sound checked, and ran a couple songs without a hitch.
The show itself was relatively seamless. The drummer, the guitarist, and one of the singers have been doing this gig for months and it was easy to settle into my role with only a few major flubbs on my part. Having tracks also helped. There's a nice lady who whispers cues in your ears (bass in 2 3 4, chorus, outro, etc...) and the extra production makes for a nice polish on everything. I, being a responsible adult, took an edible between 2nd and 3rd sets, and about 2 songs from the end of the gig, it started to hit me. Luckily, I've played Don't Stop Believing enough times to do it my sleep, but I won't be making that mistake in the future!
Saturday morning, we got up and tore down so we could set up in Elko for the next two nights of shows. Unfortunately, the guitarist was booked elsewhere, so a sub drove out to cover his parts for the remainder of the weekend. Like me, this was his first time playing this gig. I had a bit of downtime before the show, so I busted out my
Zoom B14 to run some tunes quietly in my hotel room, because there were definitely a few songs where I wasn't as solid as I could be.
The Elko stage is an odd one. The club has a pretty strict rule about sound levels, so as to not disturb the Blackjack games happening on the other side of the room. On the ceiling facing the band, there's a digital readout that tells you the decibel level it's registering, and starts to flash when it hits the limit of 95db. In order to stay under the limit, the drummer has to use an isolating plexiglass drum cage and really dial it back. Fortunately, for the rest of us, the sound engineer has full control of everything else as there are no amps or monitors on stage as everyone is using amp modelling pedals and IEMs, so we can just play without worrying about that aspect. We had a decent sized group that stayed and danced the whole night, and got through the sets ok.
Since there's absolutely nothing to do in Elko, I slept in as late as my body wanted, grabbed breakfast and then took an extended nap. One of our singers was booked elsewhere, so we added yet another new musician to the stage for Sunday night. This was one of her first cover gigs ever, and she pulled through quite well.
I'm pretty impressed with how well these gigs went. Everyone was responsible and professional about being prepared and showed up ready to go. I'm hoping I get more of these calls in the future because it's a fun gig that makes you feel more like you're on vacation than working.
Here's some video if you want to hear/see more of my experience!
