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New normal. Back to gigging


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A white sheet and still shut down? That's one sensitive little keyboard! I'm bringing a white towel for tomorrow's gig, just in case. I'll probably be able to set myself up back far enough to be out of the sun until later in our gig, but you never know.

 

So after over a year of no gigs, we're working â and the complaints are piling up! Shlep, heat, what's next? I can hardly wait!

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Things have sort of hit the ground running here. I've had 7 services so far in June--two recording sessions and five gigs. There are 7 on the books right now for July, which, though it's about half of what I was doing per month in the Beforetimes, still feels like a lot. More will fill in there too.

 

Too much, as others are feeling as well. I am feeling VERY ambivalent about the "commerce" gigs--the weddings and the like. Not for the schlep/Murtaugh-threshold factor so much as the fear that it may be deadening the most-alive part of my world right now, and after the pandemic I don't feel like spending "dead" time of any kind. Music should be the life part, not the death part.

 

Of course, then rent comes due and it's all in the realm of first-world rumination.

Now out! "Mind the Gap," a 24-song album of new material.
www.joshweinstein.com

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I did maybe 7 gigs between March 2020 and March 2021. Started playing some gigs at the end of April this year. May and June, things started picking up but not totally back to normal. July is looking good.
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We played one show a month ago outside. Now bands are back inside, and its picking up. i have 6 shows booked over the next 2 months so far, which is a lot for me and my hobby. First one is next Sat at an old favorite dive bar. God bless all the dive bar owners that hung in thru one fucked up year+. I"ll be taking my modest dive wages for the first few shows and giving it to the bar staff.
The baiting I do is purely for entertainment value. Please feel free to ignore it.
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My main band did a couple of very cautious outdoor gigs last fall between Sept-Oct, though it was still in the peak of Covid and so these were surreal gigs with lots of uncertainty. We just started getting back to gigs at the end of May and have been playing just about every weekend. To the points earlier about exhaustion and simply being "out of gig shape" I am right there with you. I've always been a very active player on stage, with my rolling rig and I jump around all night. I've kept up my running after getting past an injury, so I'm in pretty good cardio shape, however, my legs are not used to jumping up and down all night on stage. After our first big show, I was hurting for days afterwards. I had to lay low a bit at the next shows and still working on how I get those "stage jumping" muscles back in condition to sustain it.

 

This past weekend, my band played its first indoor gig since pre-Covid and it was a lot of fun, but again was very tiring. I even left load out a little early and got home at 2 am, only to turn around and get up to leave for a family trip the next morning at 7 am. I was struggling to stay awake and have any energy. I think it's a little bit of "getting older" and also the pandemic created this "hunker down in place" that has caused some of my usual things to atrophy a bit. I hope to get past this soon.

 

In any event, it has been really fun getting back to gigs. I went through a few dark days of weirdness during the height of the pandemic, wondering if it was time to retire from live shows. I've decided to stick with it for now.

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. I even left load out a little early and got home at 2 am, only to turn around and get up to leave for a family trip the next morning at 7 am. I was struggling to stay awake and have any energy. .

 

Well.....you gotta stop doing this type of thing?!! ð

Kurzweil Forte 7, Mojo 61, Yamaha P-125,

Kronos X61, Nautilus 73

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. I even left load out a little early and got home at 2 am, only to turn around and get up to leave for a family trip the next morning at 7 am. I was struggling to stay awake and have any energy. .

 

Well.....you gotta stop doing this type of thing?!! ð

 

Well, there was this family thing planned before the band's gig was confirmed, so as I would do in the "old days" I committed to both things, knowing I'd stand on the shoulders of my wife who agreed to drive us to this family occasion in the early morning after my late gig. It gets harder every year to productively wake up and do a full day of things after a late night gig.

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My main band actually only had April and May totally off in 2020. From June 2020 on, we had at least a couple gigs a month, either outdoors or indoors where allowed with limited capacity, widely spaced tables, etc.

 

The nice thing was that all of the shows were early evening due to local or state curfews. We'd wrap up about the same time that we would have started in the pre-Covid days. I've actually gotten kind of used to that now, so I'm not looking forward to when the time slots move back to "normal."

Live: Yamaha S70XS (#1); Roland Jupiter-80; Mackie 1202VLZ4: IEMs or Traynor K4

Home: Hammond SK Pro 73; Moog Minimoog Voyager Electric Blue; Yamaha S70XS (#2); Wurlitzer 200A

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A couple of days later I feel pretty good. Ready to do it again.

"It doesn't have to be difficult to be cool" - Mitch Towne

 

"A great musician can bring tears to your eyes!!!

So can a auto Mechanic." - Stokes Hunt

 

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Feels strange like something is different for me. We just picked up after a 14 month absence and although it's been a lot of time inbetween in doesn't feel like anytime has gone by on the other hand.

"Danny, ci manchi a tutti. La E-Street Band non e' la stessa senza di te. Riposa in pace, fratello"

 

 

noblevibes.com

 

 

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It's the morning after the gig that brings on the "maybe I'm too old for this." Even though the gig was 3 hours in the afternoon the day before, the next morning it feels like I don't remember being run over by the truck. I'm hoping there's such a thing as being out of gig shape and that this will get better as gigs settle into the new normal. If this is a permanent change, I'm screwed.

Again, I can't express the level of joy I experience to be able to stand on the sidelines and say -- by all means, have at it. :wave:

 

After 54 years, been there, done that, thanks for the call but no thanks.

 

Being able to get in my 2-3 hours a day practicing on my incredible piano, running with my dog, riding my two fabulous bikes -Potts mountain and a new Moots road- and last but not least, hanging with my wife of 40 years (today btw).

 

I'll take it all, any day, over any gig. ;):)

 

 

I have to admit I feel the same way I have other priorities at the present time that are more important than playing a gig but I am really having a tough time with a death in the family, After being a caregiver and I just can't

 

seem go move on hardest thing I have ever did in my life so attached and watch someone slowly die is really hard. She wanted me to be there and I gave up everything so I feel like I did my best and life goes on

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It's the morning after the gig that brings on the "maybe I'm too old for this." Even though the gig was 3 hours in the afternoon the day before, the next morning it feels like I don't remember being run over by the truck. I'm hoping there's such a thing as being out of gig shape and that this will get better as gigs settle into the new normal. If this is a permanent change, I'm screwed.

Again, I can't express the level of joy I experience to be able to stand on the sidelines and say -- by all means, have at it. :wave:

 

After 54 years, been there, done that, thanks for the call but no thanks.

 

Being able to get in my 2-3 hours a day practicing on my incredible piano, running with my dog, riding my two fabulous bikes -Potts mountain and a new Moots road- and last but not least, hanging with my wife of 40 years (today btw).

 

I'll take it all, any day, over any gig. ;):)

 

 

I have to admit I feel the same way I have other priorities at the present time that are more important than playing a gig but I am really having a tough time with a death in the family, After being a caregiver and I just can't

 

seem go move on hardest thing I have ever did in my life so attached and watch someone slowly die is really hard. She wanted me to be there and I gave up everything so I feel like I did my best and life goes on

 

I have many other priorities too but i still love playing the occasional (2-3 month max) gig just to get the beak a lil wet. I took a long time off between the 80s and when i restarted gigging, still haven"t got all the yah-yah"s out yet I guess. I still get a kick out of playing in front of a live crowd. I"ll be 60 this year and think I"ll be doing it for another 5 yrs or more.

 

I do turn down offers to add other bands or gigs to the roster. My beak is wet enough and I"m not gonna be a rock star now lol. Good too see the balance here though - if its not a kick for you, don"t do it - do something that is for you. To each his ⦠its not like we"re suffering a shortage of gigging muso"s lol.

The baiting I do is purely for entertainment value. Please feel free to ignore it.
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Got offered a great opportunity with an established, popular local band. Had to think for a week before I got enthusiastic. Stay strong and recover, bless us all.

Kawai KG-2C, Nord Stage 3 73, Electro 4D, 5D and Lead 2x, Moog Voyager and Little Phatty Stage II, Slim Phatty, Roland Lucina AX-09, Hohner Piano Melodica, Spacestation V3, pair of QSC 8.2s.

 

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Here in Italy restrictions have been quite, well, strict. We've just starting to come out of what was essentially a 9-month lockdown, with all clubs and theatres closed and curfew at 10 PM. My last gig was in Sept 2020 (one of only 2 in the Covid era), but we're finally starting to get some bookings for July. Can't say (yet) how gigging life will be, but just getting back to rehearsing has been quite exhausting. 9 months of sitting on the office kitchen chair really took their toll. I didn't put up weight and lived a pretty healthy life in these months, but it's quite shocking to see how tough it is to do all the normal 100-things-per-day that once were everyday routine.

 

I've done a few gigs in 2021 so far. Building off a theme in this thread ("I'm getting too old for this"), I have never been so intent of streamlining and minimizing my gigging gear.

 

I'll just say that I'm replacing my Nord Stage 2EX 88 with the Compact version, to keep all my sounds and programs in half the weight.

And I just sold a couple of huge and heavy two-tier stands. My current rig will be: Yamaha P-121 for piano gigs, Stage 2 Compact for everything else. With all the awesome lightweight options we have nowadays, I just can't see the point in ever gigging an 88-key again.

 

 

I have to admit I am tired of playing weekends, then spending Sunday to recover my body clock to banking hours for monday.

 

I'm MUCH more tired of playing weekdays! My very first gig after 10 months will be on a Thursday night...I just can't imagine how I'll be able to work the next day :coffee:

 

On the positive side, many bands clearly split up or made major lineup changes during this last 1 1/2 year of nothingness. So now that everybody is rabid to get back to live music I'm getting tons of calls for new bands, subbing etc, and I'm getting the luxury to choose the very best options and doing things on my own terms.

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