Re: Weekend Gig

[dr.alters-wizardsway@xxxxxxx (Dennis B. Alters MD)]

Went really well Eric although we had some technical difficulty. We did an excellent sound check after a laborious set-up. Went back to the hotel to change and one of the waiters accidentally unplugged one of the monitors and re-plugged it into the wrong jack. We did not discover this until the third song of the first set when the harmonies sounded off. Fortunately, I was not singing and could listen. Our sound man jumped on it and was a real Sherlock. Found the problem and we were off to the races. We constructed the set list to start off with slower, easy tempo, numbers and build by the fifth song. Most of our tunes are 5 min. We had to start in the middle of the first planned set because the ceremony and presentations ran one hour over.  We had an extra back up list of slow songs or easy tempo to add on past the fifth if the crowd wanted more of a fill or juke box that would not interfere with conversation. Getting a feel for the party is a key when it is not a listening !
crowd.  We were just an unobtrusive accent piece. Then the time came to build which we had planned mid first set (unless we would extend the easy tempo). We ended up rolling right into the kicking second set and did not take a break because this was an early crowd and the people were exhausted after the presentation. The presentations were awesome up until everyone had to get into the act and the mistress of ceremonies lost control. I advised her that she could break up the open mic testimonial whenever she wanted by introducing me to have the band lead Happy Birthday. She was relieved. We also had a backup of up-tempo songs to extend in case the crowd was going to party longer. So in essence, I took the advice of my colleagues on Harp-L thanks guys. Had a building type of show and had back ups to extend either in terms of keeping it soft or lively. Hope you and John break a leg. Let me know if you have any other questions.


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Dennis "Doc" Alters 

Harp and Vocals 
The Alternators 
www.thealternatorsband.com


- -------------- Original message from "Eric Neumann" : -------------- 
> How did the gig go?