Friday night’s concert was the last until Dave comes back in the fall. Once again we played in our local joint where I first heard Dave and were we (Messin’ Round) first played before we really became a band. A good way to measure where two and a half years of washboard playing has led me.
Friday nights concert was a mixed bag, the worst thing for me was not being able to hear Dave’s guitar very well, or anything else for that matter. The sound was just not circulating in the corner I was in and my washboard covered most of what was there to hear, so it was pretty strenuous and I was not able to loosen up as much as I would of liked. Mixing that with the fact that we had a bunch of newly arranged material that we were playing for the first time didn’t help make it the best situation to relax and party. However, most of it went over far better than it would have even six month ago and I can really see the progress I have made. A nice feeling!
The audience really enjoyed it, as it seems that the sound they were getting was perfectly acceptable. They happily drank, chatted and laughed their way through the evening since this is not the type of place were folks feel obligated to sit back, remain silent and listen attentively. In fact you can sort of judge how much of the audience the band is captivating by the level of the crowd noise. The more they shut up, the better it is!
Bill is doing his best to get us to sing in three part harmony when the song permits it, so I have been singing more; not the easiest thing while playing the washboard. In fact I find it far more difficult than singing while playing the guitar. The only way to do it is to practice enough that it becomes second nature, a place where I have yet to get but nevertheless am beginning to feel. Speaking of guitar Dave and I did play three numbers together, something we hadn’t done in a while, but between my lack of practice, sweaty thimbled fingers and the frankly horrible sound of my guitar (when I could hear it), I’ll be doing my best to forget that moment.
During our second set started we invited Blaise, Crawfish Blues Band’s harmonica player to join the fun (unfortunately Denis, CBB’s bassist was not able to make it). Blaise is on the left in this picture I just stole from his blog; thanks Blaise ;-).
All in all we played over 3 1/2 hours and were thoroughly exhausted when we stopped after the encore, sometime near 1 am. Even Dave seemed ready to stop by then!
And BTW: we had fish burgers for dinner but it made a nice title ;-)…