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Sunday, November 11, 2007

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.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

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.

7:16 AM, November 13, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

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,
Brendy

7:05 PM, November 17, 2007  

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