John Hendow

It was a fun show this past weekend and I’m delighted with how well the music went. I had a pleasant drive over to Port Angeles on Saturday morning, arriving early enough to walk around town for a bit. Among my adventures of the day was finding a nice coffee shop with a La Marzocco “Linea” 2 group espresso machine; this is the unit I’d love to get as my home machine some day. After a few hours of walking around and exploring I found another small coffee shop where I camped out at a table and reviewed the set.

For this gig I took 2 Stratocasters (one as a backup), the Pod XT Live, and my Behringer bass amp. It turned out that the Behringer actually makes a pretty decent guitar amp. Its tone is pretty transparent, so it just acts as a power amp / cab combo. The Pod sounded terrific; this was my first performance with it and I’m very pleased with it.  

Soundcheck went well and I felt comfortable that we’d have a good night. Apparently the Port Angeles High School reunions are always a big deal. The class of ’87 was celebrating their 20th year, with the typical sort of reunion activities and social dramas one would expect. This gig was Shane’s (our drummer) reunion so he was the star of the musical show.

The actual music of the evening was great, with a lot of dancing and singing along. During the break I was subjected to a few drunken requests for “dude play some AC/DC or Tesla!”. Some of the people present were very attuned to our playing and made flattering compliments about some portion of the performance. It’s always good to hear that someone noticed the effort that we put into getting things right. I was glad it went so well and look forward to the next show.

Read the rest of this post for our set list.

Set List from PAHS 20 Year Reunion
8/11/2007

• If You Leave – OMD
• Take On Me – Ah Ha
• Wishing I Had A Photograph Of You – Flock Of Seagulls
• Borderline – Madonna
• What’s Love Got To Do With It – Tina Turner
• Do You Really Want To Hurt Me – Culture Club
• Something About You – Level 42 (guitar solo)
• Don’t You Forget About Me – Simple Minds
• Addicted to Love – Robert Palmer
• Let’s Dance – David Bowie
• It’s My Life – Talk Talk
• Sweet Dreams – Eurythmics
• Walk Like An Egyptian – Bangles
• I Ran – Flock Of Seagulls
• Hungry Like The Wolf – Duran Duran
• Rebel Yell – Bill Idol
• A Little Respect – Erasure
• Everybody Wants To Rule The World – Tears For Fears
• Kiss Them For Me – Siouxsie And The Banshees
• Legs – ZZ Top
• Master And Servant  – Depeche Mode
• Obsession – Animotion
• Once In A Lifetime – Talking Heads
• People Are People  – Depeche Mode
• Personal Jesus  – Depeche Mode
• Stop! – Erasure
• Strangelove – Depeche Mode
• Don’t Stop Believin’ – Journey
• Always Something There To Remind Me
• Time After Time – Cyndi Lauper
• Open Your Heart – Madonna
• White Wedding – Bill Idol
• What You Need – INXS
• Take My Breath Away – Berlin
• Kiss On My List – Hall & Oates
• Say It Isn’t So – Hall & Oates
• Be Near Me – ABC
• Love My Way – Psychedelic Furs
• Don’t You Want Me – Human League
• Voices Carry – Til Tuesday
• The Metro – Berlin
• Just Can’t Get Enough  – Depeche Mode
• You Spin Me – Dead or Alive
• Relax – Frankie Goes To Hollywood
• The Promise – When In Rome