Our friend "MattHammed" got me reading a blog from another
musician named Theo Travis who's currently playing with Steven Wilson.
After reading many entries, I can see how insightful it is to have that
window into the band and at least one perspective from an active
member as it pertains to what's going on and all the little tidbits of
things you didn't know. I'd like to offer this to our current fans and
hope you find this equally as insightful and entertaining.
Our
last gig was May 9, 2013 at the legendary "Bombtown". Another
great show there! The crowd is always awesome and we feel a special
warmth in our souls when we play there as this was the location of our
first ever live show several years ago.
This particular gig marked
several firsts. For one, this was our first ever gig without a true
set list. We just brought a list of songs and sort of went through
calling out different ones to play. I thought the show went well, but
honestly we probably won't do that again. I like being flexible, but it
was hard to figure out what songs to play when you're looking at a list
of over 50 songs and not to mention you've probably had a "Jager Bomb"
or two if you're at Bombtown. hahaha! We played most of what we
intended, but left off probably 7-8 songs we would have normally played
including one of our first originals called "Ocean City" (which was
another first, not playing that one at a show). The crowd was great all
night and rocked the freestyle portion of our show for sure! Speaking
of which, during that freestyle and connecting song "Rockin' Body", I
had to play left footed because my beater loosened up on my bass pedal
as I was playing and flew across the room. Luckily I was playing a
double bass pedal at the time and just switched to the other foot.
Hopefully, that went pretty smooth with no one being able to tell. That
was certainly a first. And speaking of firsts and double bass pedals,
that was the first time I had played a show with a double bass pedal.
We also played with a new mixer board pretty much right out of the box,
so that was a first too, but all of it seemed to work fine during the
show.
To date, we have played a brand new song at every live show
we have ever played. I'm sort of proud of that and hope our fans
appreciate us wanting to give them something new and different every
single time. This time, we played a new song called "Firing Man" and it
seemed to go well. We also played two new covers, "Backseat Baby" and
"Wagon Wheel". While I ran and grabbed my other kick pedal, B
played "Already Here" which is raw, but will be a good one too I think.
To update our current status:
We
are extremely busy with our "other lives" and have a bunch of travel
throughout the Summer among other things preventing us from doing a lot
of "touring". The bad news is this will most likely prevent us from
doing any "away" gigs for the rest of this year. But the good news is
that we are trying to pencil in a few "Home" gigs around Tally and also
hope to get back into the studio to start recording our songs again. We
are hoping to add a couple shows in the next few months that will be
truly open to the public so that anyone can make it. I've had several
people telling me they want to hear us play, and well, you're about to
get your wish. We'll keep you all posted.
We are also practicing
as we have time (which isn't much), and seem to still be riding that
creative vibe, so look for another new song or two possibly at the next
show.
Finally, We are looking for any video or recordings that
people have made of us at our gigs. I've personally seen many folks
recording at various times over the past many shows, so it would be good
to obtain a lot of that footage for our archives. We appreciate any
help we can get on that. Also, let's get more likes on facebook, so
spread the word!
Until that next Lightning Storm!
- DMaster Miagi - Drums / Percussionist / Vocals