What a fun gig!
Joe Bouchard is a great guy. Very humble, friendly and down to earth. No "rock star ego" as one might think coming from arguably one of classic rock's bigger acts.
He did an acoustic set on a 12 string guitar of his solo material then the local band Roktapus came on and backed him for the BOC tribute portion. It ROCKED! Kudos to the Roktapus guys. They are a trio of 20 something guys who just met Joe the day before and basically rehearsed with him once. They all said Joe was one of the nicest guys they've ever met. He was very patient with them. They didn't just play the BOC tunes straight from the albums either, all got live treatments with extended sections and solos. Came across very well. They even did a funny "more cowbell" homage during Fear The Reaper. A bud of the Roktapus guys came up on stage during the tune with this huge cowbell and whacked away on it throughout the entire song. Very fun!
I got to talk to Joe after our set when I ran into him in the dressing room. He was very complimentary about our set and said he loved our Crimson numbers...all our songs actually. He said they grew up loving those KC tunes, "they were the gospel to us back then." He really dug our projected effects show too and asked me how we did them.
The crowd could've been a little bigger, but, eh it was a Thursday night...oh well. Still a fun time had by all. At the end of the night I thanked Joe again and he said "yeah, lets do it again sometime!"
I didn't get to tell him I saw BOC with Foghat at the Toledo Sports Arena back in 1981. Wondered what his memories may have been about that tour. Maybe next time.
We received a lot of great compliments regarding our set. A big thanks to all!
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Final Set Run Thoughs-Uhhhrrg!
We rehearsed last Monday and Tuesday nights to shore up any performance issues for our show Thursday. These included getting our G-Force effects reloaded on our laptop so our guy Tim could coordinate the effects with the tunes. Monday things went fine. The same can't be said for Tuesday.
Tuesday we hooked the laptop up to the projector so we can all watch the effects...this is always a good idea so when we are actually on stage we don't get sucked into watching them when we are up on stage and forgetting what we are supposed to be playing. Well, the laptop and G-force didn't seem to want to get along when the projector was hooked up and kept freezing up....not good! It took some time and doing but I discovered reinstalling an older version of the program seemed to do the trick. Problem one solved after about 45 minutes or so.
Problem two. One of Larry's keyboard's, the old Ensoniq SQ-2 came up with a battery low warning. This means that when it goes out all the internal, user edited sound will be erased when the keyboard is shut off. Of course we need some of those sounds! Last time this happened we had to take the keyboard into a factory authorized repair place because we were told the battery is soldered in. Soldered in! I found some info online that described what one guy did to solve this problem. It involved taking it to a Batteries Plus store and have them replace it. Without experience one should not the solder a battery can be dangerous...batteries and heat do not mix! Wednesday looked like it was going to be fix the keyboard day. Well, we have all the sounds backed up fortunately so at least we could recover.
On Wednesday I got some great advice from some keyboardist over on the Progressive Ears forum. Why not wait until we can research installing a new battery when we have time? In the meantime we can bring the backup disc to the gig. As long as the board is plugged in it retains the memory. Good plan! None of the repair shops could guarantee getting the work done in one day anyway. We were so consumed with fixing it we didn't think of that really. I also got turned onto a removable battery compartment for the keyboard which when installed would allow us to to just slip a new battery in without solder. Great idea! Wednesday eve I decided to take the bottom off the board just to see where the dang battery is anyway. Guess what? The battery was already in a removable holder! No soldering necessary. We think the guys at our repair place ripped us off for some heavy labor fees ($75) and told us the thing had to be soldered and suggested they do the work. Uhhrg! So, in 20 minutes I had the new battery replaced ...that included running to Walgreens and back and loading the new sounds. Cost of new battery...$4.
Moral of the story...don't believe the manual or your repair people and check their work.
So what was supposed to be an easy/breezy rehearsal to tune up the musical performance aspect turned into a stressball situation.
All is good now. We are ready to prog rock!
Tuesday we hooked the laptop up to the projector so we can all watch the effects...this is always a good idea so when we are actually on stage we don't get sucked into watching them when we are up on stage and forgetting what we are supposed to be playing. Well, the laptop and G-force didn't seem to want to get along when the projector was hooked up and kept freezing up....not good! It took some time and doing but I discovered reinstalling an older version of the program seemed to do the trick. Problem one solved after about 45 minutes or so.
Problem two. One of Larry's keyboard's, the old Ensoniq SQ-2 came up with a battery low warning. This means that when it goes out all the internal, user edited sound will be erased when the keyboard is shut off. Of course we need some of those sounds! Last time this happened we had to take the keyboard into a factory authorized repair place because we were told the battery is soldered in. Soldered in! I found some info online that described what one guy did to solve this problem. It involved taking it to a Batteries Plus store and have them replace it. Without experience one should not the solder a battery can be dangerous...batteries and heat do not mix! Wednesday looked like it was going to be fix the keyboard day. Well, we have all the sounds backed up fortunately so at least we could recover.
On Wednesday I got some great advice from some keyboardist over on the Progressive Ears forum. Why not wait until we can research installing a new battery when we have time? In the meantime we can bring the backup disc to the gig. As long as the board is plugged in it retains the memory. Good plan! None of the repair shops could guarantee getting the work done in one day anyway. We were so consumed with fixing it we didn't think of that really. I also got turned onto a removable battery compartment for the keyboard which when installed would allow us to to just slip a new battery in without solder. Great idea! Wednesday eve I decided to take the bottom off the board just to see where the dang battery is anyway. Guess what? The battery was already in a removable holder! No soldering necessary. We think the guys at our repair place ripped us off for some heavy labor fees ($75) and told us the thing had to be soldered and suggested they do the work. Uhhrg! So, in 20 minutes I had the new battery replaced ...that included running to Walgreens and back and loading the new sounds. Cost of new battery...$4.
Moral of the story...don't believe the manual or your repair people and check their work.
So what was supposed to be an easy/breezy rehearsal to tune up the musical performance aspect turned into a stressball situation.
All is good now. We are ready to prog rock!
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Vacations, Holidays and Rehearsals, Oh My!
It's been a bit of a challenge, seems every week some of us are heading out of town for various reasons, including this week, but we have managed to keep a somewhat regular rehearsal schedule going, even if it means working on videos and stuff for our October 27th Halloween Bash. Throw into the mix the fact The Oriental Theater has asked us to do an opening slot for Joe Bouchard, Blue Oyster Cult's founding bass player, who will be involved in a Blue Oyster Cult Tribute night on Thursday, September 20th, time is whirring by. We have a nice set worked out for the B.O.C. show. Hope to see some folks come out and catch the show!
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