I had chance last night to play piano for the oldies/doo wop group The Flamingos, who were going to be playing in my area and needed piano and a drummer for a show they were doing at one of the casinos here. It was me, the drummer (who was a friend of mine), a stack of chord charts and a Mac laptop running Logic Pro with the rest of the back tracks on it. I thought it might be a nightmare gig but it was only 30 mins away and the money was decent, and I was open, so I figured what the heck. All I had to bring was a keyboard, the soundman did everything else.

Loaded in, did a sound check/rehearsal, had dinner with them, and then did 2 1 hour shows, and I had an absolute blast. I've never played this kind of music before,and have never played to backing tracks, so it was a totally new experience for me. I have to say, they were complete pros. Working the audience, sweet harmonies, showmanship that is brought on by decades of performing. I have a new apprciation for a brand of music that was a huge part of our musical history.

Played a lot of repetitive chords in 8th note triplets that night Dan?

The only Flamingos song I remember was their remake of "I Only Have Eyes For You" with she-bop harmonies and da-da-da / da-da-da piano. Sounds like a fun no pressure gig. Congrats!

Yep, lots of 12/8 feel, but some of the chord changes were surprising and very nice. I was figuring 1-6-2-5 all night, but they have a lot of nice passing changes in most of the songs. They did a lot of covers- standard stuff like Mack the Knife etc so it wasn't super repetitive.

Yeah, the Flamingos "I Only Have Eyes For You" is one of the high points of the genre. The guitar and bass tenths figure is super cool, and just the overall sparseness and vibe of the track, along with some of the hip voicings and lines the guitar plays through the bridge and the "chorus" parts, make for some of the best small group orchestration you'll hear.

Sounds like a fun gig!

Interesting. I am wondering why they use live drums and keyboards. Was some of the stuff without tracks? Were the keyboards and drums deleted from the tracks? Just curious...

Everything was on the tracks, piano and drums included. We played along to the tracks. They don't have the budget for a full band, but they want musicians on stage so it isn't a total kareoke event. I thought it would be cheesey, but it wasn't so bad. Their performance and showmanship far outdid any cheesiness that backing tracks lent to the show.