The swimming pool show - addenda and updates

First of all, if someone has a very discerning eye, they might have noticed that the bassist not only switched shirts from the afternoon sound check; he also switched his bass! Just after I left home on Friday afternoon, after the cold shower and change of shirt, he called me and asked whether he could play my bass in the evening. It turns out that his bass was making noises at certain places (I didn't get the complete story) and that the soundman suggested that he replace his bass. Where is the nearest bass guitar? At my home. So we went home, I produced the guitar and he proceeded to play it in the evening.

The lead guitarist has been complaining that he was mixed low in the mix. I thought that this was just in the monitor on my side of the stage but the various videos do have me louder. The singer says that he and his wife helped do the balance in the afternoon and then it was good, so maybe someone changed something later on.

I found out that this was not the first time the guitarist had suffered from a bad on-stage mix: apparently the group - without me, who was yet to join - played on Independence Day.

I used to have a dream in which I was playing with a group of musicians; their sound was a complete accompaniment and all I had to do was add rippling arpeggios. The meaning behind this is that in 1975-1982 I played in various combinations where I had to do most of the music work and so I never had the chance to sit back and contribute something extra to the music. This musical group allows me - at times - to do just that. In some of the songs I am playing plain and simple rhythm guitar parts, but others allow me to stretch out a little. For example, the first few verses of 'I want it that way' are based on my arpeggios. In the original recording of 'Long train running', there are three guitar parts; the other guitarist in our line up is playing the chords, leaving me free to add an obligato part. No one made any comment about this part that is melodically simple but sometimes challenging rhythmically, so I continued playing it. One song even gives me a short unaccompanied solo; I was encouraged to take this part at an early rehearsal, and throughout the weeks refined the notes (playing notes from the Gm scale over an E chord). So one could say that my dream came true.

We have a gig on Tuesday night at a neighbouring kibbutz! Or maybe we do not as the female singer might otherwise be engaged. The issue has yet to be resolved.

Here's a video of us performing "I want it that way", originally by the Backstreet Boys.