4 gigs this past weekend!

It was a busy weekend... 2 Uncharted gigs, playing a church service, and playing for a Masonic dinner.
It is all about stamina when you hit a string like this!

Friday night, UnCharted played at Club 302 (a regular gig) in Windham. There was a benefit auction prior to us, and we literally had 30 minutes to set up (we normally require 2 hours with soundcheck). The crowd was minimal and it seemed dead. I was excited to be using newer technology.

--I had a new set of lights under my top keyboard so I could see the buttons on my keys underneath. It runs on a battery pack and I have the switch on top.
--I had a new mixer (Mackie Profx 12) that allowed me to be in stereo from each keyboard, and allowed me to wear headphones as my monitor (saving room in my car from bringing a powered speaker).
 --I brought my laptop which fed another LCD screen in front of the rest of the band that had the sett on it-- I even went so far as to make a powerpoint with each slide giving details about each song (in case it was needed). This worked alright, but I still need to tweak it-- having a pedal to change screens would also be a plus since we normally play 4-5 songs in a row and I didn't think of clicking the return button each time.

After the gig, we each drove home for a minimal sleep time of 3 hours in order to get up early for the Patriot 5k in Gray (the next gig). http://www.patriot5k.org/

 This was a benefit gig and we got a t-shirt with our name printed on it and free food. We played a short set and it was good experience in setting up our equipment in record time. We seem to have a system now-- although we can always hope for newer tech (wireless systems, head mics, effects...).

That same day (Sat) I returned home and unloaded equipment and tried to take a nap. 30 minutes later I was up and packing for a service at the United Methodist Church in Auburn with Mitch Thomas. I play there every now and then and I am the icing on his cake. I play guitar and improvise more than anything-- it is an old hat for us. After the service he mentioned playing the next day at a benefit dinner at the Hilton Garden Inn. I thought nothing of it so I agreed.

The Hilton changed inside-- better layout and more classy! I went out back and found 200 well-dressed people eating dinner and talking. I couldn't find Mitch until he ducked out to take a phone call. He invited me to sit at a table (thankful that I wore a tie) and proceeded to talk with the dignitaries. They were from a masonic order called the Eastern Star-- their logo was an upside down pentagram (having seen heavy metal album covers, that made me think evil). I couldn't quite figure out what they did, besides getting together over dinners and congratulating each other-- maybe they are like the Shriners and help children.
We started playing and either my guitar was out of tune or Mitch's piano was transposed-- the first 2 songs I added very little. Once we solved that, Mitch won over the audience and we turned hymnals into bluegrass and showtunes into pop music!

I went home and continued doing homework for an online grad class--- that was a wrap!

Victorious cantata and UnCharted @ Skip's Lounge

This past weekend I had a number of concerts. Saturday evening I performed "Victorious" at EABC (http://www.eabcministries.com/) in Auburn with a choir and small ensemble made up of bass, drums, violins, guitars, flute, harp, trumpet and piano (I may have missed someone). It was nourishing-- I got to play the violin again, I got to see my old concertmaster Sue Herrick,  and the music was uplifting with a good message.

The moment it was done, I went to do the polar opposite-- play with UnCharted at Skip's Lounge-- a bar in Buxton.

Getting there was no trouble-- it was near a Hannaford that I remember visiting before. There was a dump literally behind the bar (which was unsettling), but I pulled around back and knew that I was in the right place.

I started to set up my gear once I saw everyone else on the stage.

Then I somehow missed something-- I had forgotten the bottom to my keyboard stand! How was I going to put two heavy keyboards on it and have it stand upright? I thought about placing it against a wall, tried a metal bar in the bottom, but ended up with the help of a hired light guy. We had a lighting guy for this gig and he was more than equipped with lights, cables and clamps.
He secured two clamps on the bottom of my keyboard stand and it ended up looking like this:

After this was fixed, the next ordeal was setting up a million cables and connecting mixers and monitors...a process that I constantly want to streamline. It went slow, the sound was not optimal, and a mysterious buzz appeared. It turns out that the light guy had his gear plugged into ours-- interference. We solved that and then we were set.

The night started without a bang, and we had issues with sound and having the stage go black after every song (I couldn't see my keyboard patches). Because of the limited power, or too many amplifiers plugged into the same power source, we lost power twice during the set.

You can see how our drummer has his own control station-- that Rack Ryder was providing power for all mains and monitors (over 10 speakers).
I had two monitors that were killing my ears on stage, until I turned one down.

It was a learning experience. For the next gig at Club 302 in May, I will have LED lights, my in-ear monitor system, the bottom of my keyboard stand, and a LCD monitor system for the band setlist. Let technology make the process easier!

Thanks!