sharpening up
Entry posted by mark555
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Since my last entry on my blog, the band, Route 62, has had two practices. Last week we added the final two songs to our set list for our forthcoming gig, and now we have the luxury of just polishing them up and bringing them to an acceptable level for public performance. As this is going to be our first gig, I am sure that we will be ok, but not as sharp as we are going to get through playing a few more live situations. The one pain in the neck though is almost having to re learn the earlier songs we put into the set list.
Looking back a few months, it is now totally obvious to me that getting a new drummer was the best move we made to progress the band forward. Since Allen, (the old man of the band) joined us, we have had weekly rehearsals and this has been the thing that has made the difference. The band has moved forward much faster for it. And in fairness to Allen, he did bring with him an expectation that we were serious and it made us raise our game. We now have twenty four numbers which are more or less ready to play, and there is enough experience in the band to overcome any live hiccups.
One thing that is bothering me is that our PA is not fully up to the job of gigs, although it is loud enough, what we do not have is a monitor system. Normally that would not be a problem, we would just go out and buy what we want. However, right now only one of the band is working, one of us being retired and the other two being out of work. So, today's task is to beg a second pa to use as a foldback system. WE have speakers we can use, but not a power amp. It will have to be the next thing on the shopping list when we get some gig money in.
Other events which are band related have been a trip to our very own Peter Green's home, which I have made an entry about on the Family Tree. Peter and I have been friends a few years now, and he has a good working knowledge of wiring pick ups and also setting guitars up. Peter has some beautiful guitars of various brands, all if which are great player's. Anyway, Shaun, our bass player, has a new Precision, which is really a "bitsa" - bits a this and bits of that... It's a lovely white body with rosewood neck, and he needed everything wired in, with the Seymour Duncan bassline pick up it sounds excellent, Peter did a great job. I also changed the strings on the 555 because I wanted a lighter gauge for the style I am playing in the band. It did have 12's on it, but I have gone down to 10's for the string bends. I didn't know how to correctly adjust the truss rod, and Peter taught me how to do it, so now I am ok with that, which is a big help.
Next wednesday is our final rehearsal before the gig, and we are going to do an afternoon and evening to polish everything up. We are almost there now, perhaps those less that perfect songs will just give us that raw edge - as the songs says, "it's only rock and roll, but I like it."
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