Not necessarily a good gig, but an interesting one.

[isaac42]

Interesting, yes.

 

One of the reasons I play with this band is that we don't play for free. We may not get paid much, but we do get paid. Except for last night. Last night was the first function for the newly chartered Albany (Oregon) Elks' Lodge. They hold their events and meetings at the American Legion Hall. They're talking about having a live band frequently, perhaps even every week, and our bandleader wants us to be that band. He used to be the house band for the American Legion at the same location. So he agreed to play the show for nothing more than dinner and drinks.

 

Now I need to step back to Tuesday, our last rehearsal. After, while I was putting my bass in its case, he asked, "Isaac, have you ever broken a string?" I said sure, but not recently. One of my basses had burrs on the bridge saddles when I first got it, and I broke a lot of strings until I got it fixed. Then pretty much not at all for decades, until a couple of years ago when I broke two within about a month, and none since.

 

Okay, that should have got me to thinking, but it didn't. Not enough, anyway.

 

The bass I play in this band has ground wound strings. I don't have any spares. Lots of spare round wounds. Besides, bass strings almost never break, right? For some reason, I got industrious yesterday. I took an old pair of jeans, cut off one of the legs and made a nice little denim bag. Then I took the strings off of this bass, put them in the bag, tied it shut, and threw it in with a load of laundry to clean the strings. When I put them back on,a bit broke off of the A string at one of the right angle bends where it goes into the machine head. No problem, plenty of string left. Strung it up, tuned it up, and put it back in its case. But you're starting to see where this is going, right?

 

We get to the hall, get set up, and sit down to our steak dinners. Two of the guys order rare, and they get huge steaks, 12-16 ounces. Two of us order medium rare, and get notably smaller steaks, No biggie. We also all ordered half of a baked potato, but Steve, the bandleader, gets a whole one, and it's huge. Drummer Fred's supposedly rare steak is medium well, but the rest are about right. Also comes with salad, toast and an apple crisp for dessert. All very nice. I had a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon with mine, which someone had decided to chill. Could be worse.

 

So we play. To me, everything sounds funny. The vocals sound distorted and chorusy through the monitors, but no one complains. I forgot the words to the second half of the second verse of Hotel California, even though I have them on a music stand in front of me. Somebody gets off time in a couple of songs, until Fred and I can bring things back in line. I miss my entrance on La Bamba, both at the beginning and after the lead. But everybody is laughing and having a good time, both the band and the crowd.

 

Then we're playing a song and I notice that my A string is a bit flat. I tune it up. Next song, the A string leaps off of the fret board! I finish the song with my hand jumping up and down the fret board on the E string, then yell, "Hold on!" Steve doesn't hear me, and starts the next song. Then he wonders why I'm not playing and looks over to see me kneeling down, looking at my bass. Dave says, "Keep going!" and they do. I suspect that the string has broken at the machine had again, and I'm right. Because of that, there's just enough string left to get it back on, with almost a full turn around the post. I put it on, tune it up, and come in to finish the song.

 

We play a few more songs to finish the night. Gigs like this tend to end relatively early, and this was no exception. Steve forgets the words to the first verse of Roadhouse Blues. Everybody from both the Elks and the Legion have a great time, and they all want us to play there regularly. But will they want to pay us?

 

One of the better things about this band is that, while we make mistakes, we don't get pissed. We just laugh, cover for each other, and keep on playing. What's the pint of doing otherwise? We're never going to get rich, we're never going to become rock stars. Might as well have fun.

[isaac42]

And after the show, one woman came up to me and said, "I really love your voice. Take care of that beautiful voice. Oh, and take care of the rest of you, too." So that was nice.

[isaac42]

Oh, and we got $60 in tips, so we each came away with $15.

[DeepEnd]

Sounds like a fun but frustrating gig if not a particularly great one. I've dropped guitar picks, forgotten lyrics, and had the AC blow my music off the stand. Never broken a sting while playing, not even a guitar string, knock on wood. If it happens to me, it'll be while tuning.

[lug]

Band Leader jinxed you...prolly a witch.

[isaac42]

I know. That's what I said. The bastage!