LAST POST UNTIL 11/19
(Program note: This will be my last post until Nov. 19.)
My final thoughts about the Mad Jack/Scream gig last weekend:
Going in, I had a feeling it was not going to be a perfect night, but for different reasons.
Mad Jack had been practicing for two months, but the added songs still weren't sounding like "water off a duck's back." Some band members couldn't be counted on to remember song parts, transitions and/or changes. (I always tell the young people: "Stay in school, don't do drugs, and always use protection.")
Mind you, we only added a lousy seven songs to our show. (We retained what we called "the original 18" -- the 18 songs we played onstage during our previous two gigs.) And of those seven, six were "dust-offs" (songs we played previously in our 31 years as a band.) So only one song -- albeit, a complicated epic -- was new to us: The Outlaws' "Green Grass and High Tides."
At the VERY LAST REHEARSAL before the gig, we had two song-stopping moments -- we screwed up so badly, the songs actually came to a crashing halt. This is NOT a good omen one week before a gig. But I'd long since gotten the feeling that no matter how many more rehearsals Mad Jack had, these problems would not go away. Sadly, I fear we've "maxed out" this band's memory.
This close to the gig, though, you can't let that bother you. So your attitude becomes: Yes, we're gonna screw up here and there, but we're gonna have the time of our lives.
I was cool with that.
But then the gig came, and with it the Technical Difficulty Hell I described in recent posts. So the problem became something else. We had to rock the house with an hour-late start time and non-existent monitors. It became a "fasten your seatbelts" night.
We pulled together.
We made the blunders, sure. (Yours Truly made the first of the evening -- one my brother later called a "doozy.") But those 31 years together counted for something. We faced the dragon, and slayed it.
And after that, we went out for spinach-and-feta omlettes.
My final thoughts about the Mad Jack/Scream gig last weekend:
Going in, I had a feeling it was not going to be a perfect night, but for different reasons.
Mad Jack had been practicing for two months, but the added songs still weren't sounding like "water off a duck's back." Some band members couldn't be counted on to remember song parts, transitions and/or changes. (I always tell the young people: "Stay in school, don't do drugs, and always use protection.")
Mind you, we only added a lousy seven songs to our show. (We retained what we called "the original 18" -- the 18 songs we played onstage during our previous two gigs.) And of those seven, six were "dust-offs" (songs we played previously in our 31 years as a band.) So only one song -- albeit, a complicated epic -- was new to us: The Outlaws' "Green Grass and High Tides."
At the VERY LAST REHEARSAL before the gig, we had two song-stopping moments -- we screwed up so badly, the songs actually came to a crashing halt. This is NOT a good omen one week before a gig. But I'd long since gotten the feeling that no matter how many more rehearsals Mad Jack had, these problems would not go away. Sadly, I fear we've "maxed out" this band's memory.
This close to the gig, though, you can't let that bother you. So your attitude becomes: Yes, we're gonna screw up here and there, but we're gonna have the time of our lives.
I was cool with that.
But then the gig came, and with it the Technical Difficulty Hell I described in recent posts. So the problem became something else. We had to rock the house with an hour-late start time and non-existent monitors. It became a "fasten your seatbelts" night.
We pulled together.
We made the blunders, sure. (Yours Truly made the first of the evening -- one my brother later called a "doozy.") But those 31 years together counted for something. We faced the dragon, and slayed it.
And after that, we went out for spinach-and-feta omlettes.
posted by Mark Voger at 2:02 PM
2 Comments:
That's what rock n roll is all about.
And as far as your blunders, I'm sure no one but you guys on stage even noticed..............sounds like the crowd loved you. Esp. the babes.
marky mark, It's brenda and dude you friggin rock out. It's such a shame that you jam so far away for me and the jackson to come see u guys jam. I would love it and probably would be your groupie. My kinda music baby. well cant wait to c u at perogie day. miss you lots.
your #1 fan,
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