A Night at The Biltmore: Part II

This one almost didn't happen.  I got to hear a bit of the leader's issues with payment, non-payment, partial cash, partial check, check wouldn't clear, other potential issues going into the afternoon of the gig.  It happens.  Nothing bad, just communication connundrms that can create a crisis.  As it was, the musicians were spared the series of problems, other than emails being sent stating the we were holding the date and hoping it would happen.  Sometimes (often times) it's good to be in the dark when it comes to these situations.  Like the touring musician, traveling form one city to the next, my job is to get to the venue safely, rested, properly attired, packing all of the necessary and maintained equipment, prepared to play the music perfectly (no mistakes, or Don Henley will come see me), you get the picture.  I don't need to be obsessing over the clients' issues, requests, money problems, last minute cold feet, you name it.  Ah, but it does happen.  We just don't always hear about it.  Fortunately, everything fell into place this time, as it should.

I spent at least a couple of hours revamping my bass pedalboard.  My SansAmp Bass Driver doesn't work anymore.  That was one issue that had gone on for awhile.  I need to send it off to get repaired; it's not the footswitch or footswitch spring, as the tech at Tech 21 suggested.  I miss it for that warm, slightly scooped tubey distortion dialed in ever so judiciously.  However, with my GK Fusion 550 head, and it's 3 pre-amp tubes, I can get some nice growl and scowl by working the pre-amp level.  Eh, maybe a cleaner signal isn't the worst thing in the world.  Without that pedal, and without the Boss LS-2 or some other gizmos, I determined that I could fit what I really needed onto my old Pedaltrain board (the small PT but not the smallest Pedaltrain Jr.).  It's cozy, but not terribly tight.  I really just wanted to accomodate my wireless receiver, an A/B switch, and the Boss ME-50B, my current mainstay for processing.  By mounting this pedalboard onto a pedalboard (love that train of thought), I can mount the power supply wall wart underneath and out of the way.  All cabling goes underneath.  I actually had to come out of pocket to purchase yet another power strip, one with the outlets oriented such that the wall warts would overlap onto neighboring outlets.  I couldn't have the wall warts sticking out perpendicular to the strip.  In fact, the strip itself had to be as skinny as possible to fit under the slightly raised Pedaltrain base.  It was a tight squeeze.  Lots of zip-ties later, I found a layout that seemed to work in tight space I delegated to myself.  The A/B switch is not in the best spot, but I don't step on it very often during a show.  It's there to facilitate switching instruments, with one channel being the wireless and the other being a cable.  Good to have, in my opinion.  I cleaned everything off with a lot of Lysol cleaner and a lot of paper towels.  Such is my carbon footprint.

I brought it out to the Bilmore for this gig.  A few positive remarks and a few smirks.  Nice to be a bit more compact and certainly less messy.  Guess what, I still had a bad cable that just went out during a song - it only happens in the middle of the set, never at soundcheck.  Ugh.  I cna't win sometimes.  I thought I had deleted all of the gremlins.  Other than that, it was smooth sailing.

 A blurry shot of Gus is processed 3 ways ...

Granite

Mirror

Stained glass

We were fed some tasty pasta and salad, with cornbread, too.  Yummy stuff.  I had seconds.  Then we waited a bit.  We were asked to play a quiet first set.  You can almost guess how that will turn out.  This band has a tough time being super quiet.  The issue is that they didn't really want live music in the first hour.  We did what we could.  Took a break and presentations were made.  The AARP folks were ready to party down after the speeches were given.  It quickly became a funk fest, with Blurred Lines and Get Lucky.  The best moments of the night were Rock With You segued into Peg.  Yes, we played some Steely Dan!  It was a fine time for Platinum Five, or was it Platinum Soul?  Glad there only 5 of us up there.  Being the other ballroom in the Biltmore and no raised stage like the previous week, there wasn't much room for anybody else.  I saw an old friend Sylvia, who works for the catering company, as I was loading out.  Good to reconnect with somebody from Jack's days at Kai Ku Do in Dunwoody.