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Posted on Mar 04 2012 12:22 PM
Well, wow, what a fun night that was!! SO RELIEVED that the Mystery Men made it without any problems, which really was a near miracle! (They were tracking the storms on their iPhones, and apparently were on the back edge of them a big chunk of their drive.) They really rocked the house, and sounded great, with several new songs which are just fantastic, with one on which Richard and Jamie trade off on lead, so cool. The (burn-victim?) masks they wear are completely freaky and unsettling, as well as quite original! Definitely makes them look mysterious! The guys are such great players, and excellent songwriters, and it was a true pleasure to have them there, thank you very much for coming, and for not bailing the night before after seeing the forecast. That took some serious cajones... Seeing them play made me realize that I really need to listen to their debut EP "Session Obscura" a lot more, which I promptly did yesterday - twice! Highly recommended! though I'm also greatly looking forward to their next release, judging on the quality of the new material they played on Friday.
The Cocktail Preachers were also just 'on', playing a tight and varied set that I dug the hell out of! As did the audience, I should add! Man, the talent in this band is just off the charts! Steve has become a truly outstanding lead guitar player, playing with great skill and feeling. Phil Tiki on bass is the very epitome of what a surf bassist should be, melodic, tasteful and always in the pocket (though he engaged in some Fender-blasphemy by playing an orange hollow-body Gretsch
- but damn, he made it sound awesome!). Phil truly gets this music, it just emanates from his every pore. The band's secret weapon is Bruce, who - not exaggerating one bit - excels at lead, rhythm AND steel guitar! His steel playing really gives the band a distinctive and personal sound, as does their mixture of exotica and surf - though they can definitely rev it up when they want to! Their new drummer (a full-time medical doctor, no less!) is excellent, too, and definitely 'gets' surf music, playing with great skill and taste. The Preachers are really hitting on all cylinders right now, as evidenced by their 2011 CD "Intoxicating", which I also checked out yesterday - I'd say it's probably the best thing they've done so far, a fantastic mini-album! Again, highly recommended! Thanks so much for coming again, guys! It's always a real pleasure to play with you.
(I should add that all the bands used our gear, which made changeovers so much more easier - and damn, both bands sounded SOOO GOOOD playing thorugh our amp line-up of a Gomez Surfer with a 2x15" JBL-D130F-loaded cab, '64 Showman with a 1x15" EV-SRO-15L-loaded tone-ring cab, and a '66 Showman with a 2x15 JBL-D140F-loaded cab - sounded simply awesome!)
I was amazed that almost the entire crowd had stuck around for our set, which started around 12:45 am. I didn't think we played as well as we're capable of, but it was OK. Given that we were playing a bunch of material which we had never (or rarely) played before, and that we haven't played a show in three months and were a bit rusty, it went pretty well, I guess. We got a great audience reaction, which was really nice, thank you all. The biggest shock was the reaction that the world premiere (so pretentious!) of Pre-Ritual/The Ritual got, the latter part of which especially we didn't think is the sort of a thing that would go down very well live, but lo and behold, it did! After we played the album, we played another six older tracks, and were ready to wrap it up. It was probably after 2 am at this point, but unbelievably, the audience was not done! They kept shouting 'More! More!"
That was a real surprise, and boy, did it feel good! We were a bit reluctant, but in the end whipped out ramshackle, unrehearsed versions of Dilmohammed, The Victor and Night Rider, which ended the night on a real high!
We ended up hanging out at the club until 3:30 am, chatting away, selling CDs, enjoying ourselves. Afterwards, Dane, three of the Mystery Men (all staying at Dane's place) and I ended up going to Steak'n'Shake afterwards, having a blast together, but not getting to bed until 5:30 am. Yikes! I left by 11 am the next morning, and the Mystery guys were all still passed out.
all in all, what a night! Definitely memorable! Also for the fact that I broke a string in the fourth song of our set! Breaking a string at a show hasn't happened to me in probably ten years. I guess I got a defective string. And it had to happen right in the middle of a solo, too - doh! (Huge thanks to Preacher Steve for changing the string for me, that was a saintly think to do!! I owe you one!) I had all sorts of technical problems that night, my power adapter for my pedals acting up, and then my tremolo footswitch not functioning and not turning on the trem. Grrrr.... (I kinda suspected that might happen, it's been acting up a bit lately, so I brought a new spare switch, but left it in my car - so, Steve was again kind enough to get it for me. I guess I owe you two!) But I had to get it out of the packaging and set it up on stage in between songs. How NOT to be prepared, boys and girls! But whatever, we had a blast.
Thanks to all you SG101-ers that were there for coming - especially the huge Ohio contingent that trekked hours to be there! We were really blown away by that - THANK YOU! And thanks to all of you that tuned in for the webcast - and of course, to Guy for setting it up and sorting out all the technical problems! I watched a part of the video, and it seemed quite good given the chaotic circumstances!
So, Tribal Fires is off to a good start - now, off to conquer the world with it!
Hope to see many of you this and next year - this year in North Carolina, Chicago, Milwaukee, California and all around Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Illinois! Next year... maybe across a large pond???
—
Ivan
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