House Of Blues Chicago gig
Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 6:50 am
Boy, I'm spent. The place was fantastic. I don't know if they spiffed up an old opera house or if it was made new, but the facility was terrific. Big stage, good size dance floor with three bars on the main level, then two more levels above of mezzanine and boxes.
The really neat thing was the sound techies who set up all the mikes for the house PA; they really knew their stuff. The dressing room was two long floors up (pant pant), but they fed us off the menu and the food was fine. Fridges stocked with soda and water, TVs and the wildest Bayou art all over the place.
The crowd was pretty stiff, lots of suits and about 70 percent male. Polite applause after almost every tune, but not much cheering and merriment. All these folks had just done a long day on the convention floor and were facing more on Friday and Saturday. Second to last set, a few started dancing, then we got some requests and the crowd brought one slightly lubricated lady to go on stage to play tambourine to "Wild Night." Last set we had two young ladies come on stage for show on "Mustang Sally" (I know, many of you hate that song -- we do the Commitments arrangement), and they had fun.
Most of the tunes went over well, but our guitarist/vocalist lost his way in the middle of "Soul Man" and he went into the key change waaaaay before the rest of us were ready. Embarrassing.
Load out was quick and efficient. Freight elevator is just at backstage, leading into an underground alley system for delivery trucks, etc. I load the car, then discover the right rear is flat. They guys in the band helped out, but I ended up driving the 110 miles home on the limited service spare at 60mph. Got to bed at 1:30.
Obviously, I have today off.
Upshot: Great experience (good money, too), but lessons learned are to practice more and have everybody take notes on arrangements. I felt I did pretty well, a couple of missed notes with fumble fingers, but I got to dance around and mug the other members of the band, and got the drummer laughing (which isn't easy). The Ricks sounded great, of course.
So, next appearing at the MARC in Winchester Virginia November 5, please welcome . . . .
The really neat thing was the sound techies who set up all the mikes for the house PA; they really knew their stuff. The dressing room was two long floors up (pant pant), but they fed us off the menu and the food was fine. Fridges stocked with soda and water, TVs and the wildest Bayou art all over the place.
The crowd was pretty stiff, lots of suits and about 70 percent male. Polite applause after almost every tune, but not much cheering and merriment. All these folks had just done a long day on the convention floor and were facing more on Friday and Saturday. Second to last set, a few started dancing, then we got some requests and the crowd brought one slightly lubricated lady to go on stage to play tambourine to "Wild Night." Last set we had two young ladies come on stage for show on "Mustang Sally" (I know, many of you hate that song -- we do the Commitments arrangement), and they had fun.
Most of the tunes went over well, but our guitarist/vocalist lost his way in the middle of "Soul Man" and he went into the key change waaaaay before the rest of us were ready. Embarrassing.
Load out was quick and efficient. Freight elevator is just at backstage, leading into an underground alley system for delivery trucks, etc. I load the car, then discover the right rear is flat. They guys in the band helped out, but I ended up driving the 110 miles home on the limited service spare at 60mph. Got to bed at 1:30.
Obviously, I have today off.
Upshot: Great experience (good money, too), but lessons learned are to practice more and have everybody take notes on arrangements. I felt I did pretty well, a couple of missed notes with fumble fingers, but I got to dance around and mug the other members of the band, and got the drummer laughing (which isn't easy). The Ricks sounded great, of course.
So, next appearing at the MARC in Winchester Virginia November 5, please welcome . . . .
.