Members Vito Corleone Posted May 23, 2016 Members Share Posted May 23, 2016 To recap what I mentioned in other threads: After 10 years of working together, our drummer left the band as he's pursuing a new career option in Colorado. Changing drummers is always a big deal and in our case an even bigger one as he was in many ways the core of the 'energy' of our stage show and did a lot of the harmony vocals as well as lead on a few key tunes. We got lucky in that a fellow who is considered one of the premiere drummers in the area expressed interest in playing with us. The audition went great as he is a really nice/good guy as well as a great drummer. Checks off all the boxes we are talking about in the "new drummer" thread. Only snag (if it even turns out to be one) is that he drums with 3 or 4 other bands on a semi-regular basis. We told him it would only work if could promise us he'd we would be his priority band. He agreed (it shouldn't be too big of a deal since we tend to book out pretty far in advance) so we're off. In the meantime, one of the top nightclubs in Sacramento (a place called The Powerhouse Pub which is actually in the town of Folsom) gave us a call out of the blue asking us if we'd be interested in playing on Friday night. We said "why not" as A) a club gig like this would be a good place to work out some bugs before the 'real' gigs begin and B) we've often thought we should find a good public venue to play on a semi-regular basis---even if the money ends up not being a whole lot --- just to have a place to showcase ourselves for potential clients, if nothing else. And if there were to be one, this place would be a good choice for several reasons. Well, I'm glad we took the gig because we DID have a few bugs to work out. The drummer did fine for his first gig, but he dropped the ball when it came on being able to start the next song immediately after finished the previous one. So we have to work on the transitions. And a few tempo issues. As I was explaining to him later, it felt like our sets were just a dozen songs being played rather than one continuous performance. Which is maybe a topic for another thread---how to pace sets. I feel that, even if you stop between songs, the space in between needs to be filled with meaningful moments, not just dead air. The entire set needs to be one solid performance geared towards keeping the audience engaged. We had way too much dead air Friday night and if anything killed us, that would have been it. Beyond that---I took over the lead vocals on a couple of the drummers old leads, including me coming out and "fronting" the band for the first time in probably 25 years. That was fun but not quite as 'familiar' as I thought it would be. I'll get my groove back on with that. And we had the extra added bonus of having both our former lead vocalists show up for the gig. So we had several songs with all four JumpStart singers on stage. That was fun and boy did the vocals sound good on those songs! Also, it was nice to just have a simple gig. Didn't set up lights, or our sound system, or drum risers or any of that. And we got to dress much more casual than usual. So it all made for a fun break from the usual. As far as how the gig went? Well, I don't know the expectations of that club. They draw a good crowd on a Friday night it seems. There were a couple of hundred people there. We brought about a dozen. Seemed to me like we held the crowd and kept the dance floor full, but again...I don't know what they expected. Sound guy said we were great and told us he saved a 'scene' for our next visit. We got the full paycheck! lol! But there was no talk from the manager of having us back at the time. So we will make contact in a day or two and ask how the night went for them and see if they want us back or not. Again, we haven't played a nightclub in 5 years so getting back into the groove of how to be at our best for those sorts of shows may take a couple of tries. Hope they give us a shot. If not? Well, it is what it is. Didn't get much in the way of pics or video but here's one someone took and sent me of us with all 4 singers and the new drummer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DeepEnd Posted May 23, 2016 Members Share Posted May 23, 2016 Sounds like you're off to a decent start. Which one are you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted May 23, 2016 Author Members Share Posted May 23, 2016 Sounds like you're off to a decent start. Which one are you? Haha! I'm the guitar neck behind the keyboard on the left! So sad I didn't make the photo....(not really) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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