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Jon Boyes -> Bad gig, good gig... (Nov. 24 2005 14:37:57)
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'Worst nightmare' time the other day. I had just finished setting up my gear for my monthly solo spot at the 'Jazz cafe' (the main live music venue), went to soundcheck and I am getting this wimpy fzzzztttt... noise coming from the speakers (sound familiar, Mike?). Then the sound cuts out completely in one speaker... After swapping cables etc I realise that I am in deep doo-doo as my amp head/mixer is the problem [:o] I only had it repaired last year, too. Rather than cancel the gig, I decide to go home and get my smaller rig which is not really ideal but its better than losing the gig...
Lots of fast driving and gear lugging later and I'm ready to go, but it turns out be a really quiet night. Just a handful of people turn people up, just enough to make my clothes smell of smoke and a couple of heckling drunks who I've bumped into before who think they're like REALLY FUNNY (not...). All that and its about the worst paid gig I do..
Still, last night more than made up for it. It was the last gig of the year for my flamenco/latin guitar duo at Las Tascas and it went great. Lots of unexpected positive audience interaction, which I love. First of all one of the dance class students is eating there and she gets up and dances to our Sevillanas. Then there's this Spanish guy and his girlfriend who I bumped into at a recent wedding gig (they worked at the hotel) who have come to check us out. They sit right in front of us shouting Ole!, doing palmas and real getting into it (later he tells me his friend from Spain who is a kiler cajon player is moving over here and would I be interested in playing with him... OH YES!)
..then these guys turn up out of nowhere in 'joke Mexican' fancy dress - you know, huge sombreros, massive fake mexican guitar, ponchos, etc and their timing couldn't have been better. I had just finished a mexican guitar solo and we were playing a tongue in cheek take on 'Zorba the Greek'. Nothing remotely mexican, but you should have seen this big fat guys looning around pretending to play their fake guitars to a bemused but happy audience of restaurant goers, clapping along as the music got faster and faster. We were relieved they hadn't turned up when we werer playing something complex and more 'serious'.
After that we were really hyped and I think our Entre Dos Aguas was the best yet, with each of us trying to out-shred the other during our solos [:D]
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