[Harp-L] Ambassadeur D'harp

["46long Blake" <46long@xxxxxxxxx>]

An attempt, anyhow, at bringing a decent chop or two to a wider
audience...and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity:

 I am lucky to have a couple close friends who can actually be considered
"Rock Stars."  One of them is my old friend, Eric, from the band Spoon.
They were in town the other night for a big show, and I was looking forward
to an evening of debauchery backstage and on the tour bus. (I'm happy to say
that at 37 I can still hang with the kids in this respect....very
occasionally). So I'm making my wife happy (so I could be allowed out for
the evening) by cleaning the minivan the afternoon before the show, and I
get a call from Eric. He wanted to know if I would be interested in sitting
in with the band that night. Heart racing, I said yes, and headed to the
venue for the soundcheck. Long story shorter, before the night was over, I
got the unbelievable opportunity to play with one of the biggest acts in
indie rock in front of a sold-out crowd of 1500 crazed fans.  Bear with me
here. I play coffehouses and restaurants once or twice a month in an
acoustic duo. This is so far out of the realm of my experience. I might not
play in front of 1500 people in a year.

So, here's evidence:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcV_9RBbvAI
The sound is awful on this recording - you can't even hear what I'm playing
with the exception of a few 4-5 draw trills and a couple other things here
and there, but apparently in the crowd you could hear it just fine. But I
don't care. It's evidence.

What struck me, though, was the crowd's reaction. Spoon includes a couple
Dylan-esque harp moments in their shows, and for some reason crowds always
like it.  The response to my amplified playing, such as it is, was
unbelievable. I'm known in Blues circles in town, but these kids didn't know
of me. But when Britt announced that they were bringing up a harmonica
player, the crowd went nuts.

They like us, guys!  They really, really like us harmonica players!

Anyway, I hope this doesn't come across as too self-serving, but I'm riding
pretty high on this, and I don't expect anything like this to happen again
anytime soon. Thanks for indulging me.

 - Blake

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