Hello Steemit Universe! Time for my second retrospective on the weekend. A few cool pictures of emerged so I'm ready to tell the tale of the weekend. Grab a drink, grab a seat and let me describe what it's like for a working musician in the modern world.
Arrival, Drive and Everything Else
The day began with a fairly late start, we didnt have to be at the venue until 2200, but we thought it would be nice to be a little early and hear some of the other bands. Driving to Groningen was no trouble on the way there and we had some snacks packed lovingly by our bass player. Arriving at around 2130, I saw some familiar faces in the blues scene, some great photographers and some old friends. When you play in a smallish scene in Holland you see a lot of the same people at blues shows. We loaded in our gear, setup fairly quickly and were ready to go.
Blink and You Will Miss our Soundcheck
Superfast soundcheck, I think we checked everything within 5 mins or less then did half of a song and were ready to bring our sound to the people. Fast soundchecks like this are usually not a problem on a smaller stage, I find if you ask for too much of your band in the monitor, the stage gets too loud with noise. I asked for a little extra keys, felt like I had a great setup of my drumkit and counted in the first song.
Intensity
From note one I felt like I brought the intensity to the gig. I was going to make damn sure that I made every song feel great, sound great and groove like hell. I have to say, I feel like I did my job admirably on that day. I felt locked in with our bassist, I felt like I had the right fills at the right time and that my playing always had a purpose. I didn't get locked into playing notes for the sake of playing notes. We drifted from song to song and had an energy that couldnt be matched by the other bands. It was a beautiful thing to be had. Check out this amazing picture from my friend Herman.
Too Short but Sweet
We finished just after an hour, again not performing our classic Boogie finale. In this set however, I don't feel like it was necessary. We had established ourselves as a great playing fun time band and set a great mood. Wrapping up on a night full of power and throwing all my emotion and energy into my groove always feels great. It's nice to just sit back and drive home a little quieter after all the craziness and chaos. But a few cool things would happen before the night is over.
New opportunity, Past Friendships
Before the gig had started I talked to a great photographer friend Patrick. He asked me to come to his studio and do a two hour radio show with my own music prepared. I would be interviewed and talk about what the music means to me and why I selected it, sounds interesting to me!
Mason Rack also messaged me late that night when I was almost home. I think Patrick had messaged him asking about me because Patrick asked if I would be on the next Mason Rack Tour. I told him I didn't think so as we had no plans for that, but I think Patrick then messaged Mason as I received a message from the man. We talked a little about the past, talked about our friendship and love for each other and then wished each other well. Mason is a great man, he really launched my career and believed in a 21 year old kid, taking me over to Australia to tour with him. Here's a couple of shots of 21 year old me and Mason.
Happy
Having played well, having made the customers, festival organizers and myself happy, I arrived home around 3:30am, unloaded my gear, thanked our Piano player from driving us (it started to snow quite heavily when we were almost home) and hit my bed. Next weekend we do it all again in Delft, then it's a gig with the Stef Paglia Trio that I cannot wait to play.
As always thanks for reading, I'm closing in on 100 followers and that's crazy to me. Every reader and comment means so much to me. Thank you so so very very much.
-Joel