Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2005 12:07 pm
I'd have to rule out a strat.
>>>>That's the mark of a good band to me, can it play for three people and make them enjoy themselves
I gotta laugh at that one, because my little band sure gets lots of experience playing for 3 people (or thereabouts).
Actually its getting better now (audience-wise). For a while there we were playing 3 or 4 times a month for a local bar (attached to a bowling alley). This bar has a "caberet license" where (by law) they were allowed to stay open past 2am but only by providing continuous live music (I suspect other states have a similar setup). We'd be hired to play from 10pm to 2am on THURSDAY nights (and yes we all had regular jobs on Friday). Often there would be the usual 3 or 6 or 10 people there until after 1pm when there would suddenly be a huge influx from the other bars that were in the process of closing down. So for the last set we would have a good (and typically pretty drunk) crowd, but then we'd sign off at 2am leaving them to their own devices for the next 2 hrs. It would have been much better for us to play 12-4, but those dang day-jobs kept getting in the way.
We no longer need to do that Thursday night thang, but it was good experience and YES, if you can have fun in front of 3 people it only gets better in front of 300. What its like in front of 3000, I wouldn't know.