'Twas the Night Before Christmas Eve with Third Party at Pastis

I did my best to hang on tight and be the R&B superstar seasoned bass sub that I envision myself being in times like these.  With Fuji Fujimoto out in Vegas for the holidays (I think she has family there), I got the call from Steve Humphrey to come and fill in her big little shoes.  Their band Third Party, with Steve on guitar and vocals (Steve has amazingly little web presence so I don't have a link for this fellow - some people are smart like that), fellow Platinum performer Glen Perdew on keys and lead vocals, Randy Hutchinson on drums, and Fuji on bass, plays at Pastis virtually every Friday night, as they have for the past 7 or so years.  That's a long time to maintain a house band!  They understandably know a ton of songs.  Glen lives up to his moniker as the Human Jukebox!  I've never seen him stumped by any tune!  What did we play?  And I Love Her (yes, we opened with this The Beatles ballad), Always and Forever (Heatwave ballad I've even a thousand times but Glen guided me through it by holding his fingers up to indicate the next chord!),, Get Down On It, Ladies' Night, a Spinners medley of Could It Be I'm Falling In Love --> I'll Be Around, a Luther Vandross tune (? - forgotten title), Sledgehammer, Peg (I told you I play this one a lot!), You Shook Me All Night Long,  Boom Boom Pow, Rock With You, Wishing Well (Terence Trent D'Arby), I Can't Tell You Why, Shining Star, a very different groove/take on Stevie Wonder's Superstition, Play That Funky Music - from the looks of all of this, I'd say Glen went a bit easy on me.  We even did Honky Tonk Women - yes, with Glen on bass and me standing in the middle trying to sing and act it all out!  I could really hear myself, and by, does that ever make a difference!

Chord chart with lyrics for Could It Be I'm Falling In Love - one of my favorite Spinners tunes from the mid-seventies when they were under the heavy hand of producer Thom Bell.  This chart was augmented from an online source.  It's not perfect, but it will help you through the song - at least you will nail the Am7 after the Ebmaj7, which would surprise most of us if we haven't played it before!

My amp was giving me a bit of grief.  First off, I brought along my old SWR Goliath II 410.  I have lost track of what replacement fuse to use.  Whatever I'm using now is not up to snuff.  I blew it out right away.  This band is possibly the loudest I've ever been a part of.  I honestly couldn't keep up, volume wise.  I need to chat with Fuji to see what she's been bringing to the party all these years - she must have a decent rig to keep up with these boys.  Luckily, I also brought my Golight 115, so I made the switch during the break.  It never hurts to travel with a few extra pieces just in case!  I need the horn to be functional for clarity's sake.  For Sledgehammer I employed the octave effect, to simulate Tony Levin's bass track, which was actually played on his Stingray fretless bass and with some sort of octave effect (up or down, I'm not sure - that detail has never been discussed.  Octave down is usually the better sounding deal, at least for bass).  I also used the octave for Michael Jackson's Rock With You, in order to get that low Eb - I didn't have time to drop D, and besides, that might have messed my mind up with all those polychords written into that joint.

Steve is a great performer - very versatile and a terrific showman.  He's not shy about taking an outrageous solo or two!  Nice chops all around.  Glen is the human jukebox - the guy never messes up!  Really.  Randy is so strong and self-assured.  He was practicing these 16th note kicks - with his left foot!  It was slammin'!  His tempo throughout the night was perfect and unwavering.  It made me consider my pushing the tempo a bit - need to practice with the metronome perhaps...  A great band and a great experience for me to be a part of it for one night.