The Portuguese American Club in Chicopee held an event to support Toys for Tots. It was a large crowd and KenCasey (Ken and I) were asked to play an early set as folks were milling around getting ready for dinner to be served. We were lucky to have a fine band there already set up as we were allowed to plug into their PA system. That meant we could use leave our amps in the car. At my age, that's a good thing.
But...
Although the microphones worked out well, my guitar and its pickup didn't. I could barely hear my playing and I need that to be able to do it well. So, I'm going to have to come up with a new strategy for this kind of thing. That's because, I thought I was the only one who couldn't hear and it turns out Ken, standing next to me, also couldn't hear me. So, the instrumental parts were at best, "eh". He told me later that he just looked over to see if my fingers were running over the neck frets and, if yes, he assumed I was doing a lead. Ugh. That's not a good way to do this kind of thing.
We hadn't played for such a large crowd before and, at the onset, opted not to plug into our own gear. We thought the venue might be too large for that. There were several hundred people there. Now, we either have several hundred new fans or, worse, the exact opposite. Ugh.
Next week, we do a gig as a much smaller venue, The Crest Room, in West Springfield. We've played there before and the room is smaller and our gear fills the room quite nicely. So, a reprieve of sorts.
No comments:
Post a Comment