John Hendow

This weekend I played back-to-back shows with Black Celebration. Our first show was in Portland at the fabulous Wonder Ballroom. My trip to the show was somewhat frantic due to unexpected horrible traffic on I-5 between Seattle and Portland. Granted, we probably should have left an hour earlier, but I’m not entirely certain that we’d have missed all the mayhem. And so having arrived exactly one hour later than I needed to, I didn’t get a soundcheck and had to go with only a quick line check before the show. Fortunately the house sound crew are consummate professionals and made everything work perfectly. By the time we took the stage they had dialed in my guitar and vocals, and the show went very smoothly. The Wonder Ballroom is beautiful and spacious, and they have one of the nicer backstage areas. The band’s “green room” (which was actually green!) was very comfortable and clean. Awesome snacks and good beer were provided in abundance. And they even helped us load our gear. That venue is really great and I look forward to returning in the near future. Our set for the Friday show included the usual hits and I really enjoyed the way things went. I found myself a little uncertain on some songs like “Master and Servant” because I’m playing a guitar line that doubles the main synth part. On songs without a distinctive guitar part I usually try to support the main theme with a simple melodic unison. After the gig I did some re-listening to the original recordings. Our set was well received and the audience clamored for an encore. Sadly we didn’t get to do one because the set times were so tight. Oh well… always leave them wanting more, right?

Our show Saturday was at the Showbox, near Pike Place Market in Seattle. The drive back to Seattle was uneventful and much faster. Parking in the Pike Place Market area is always challenging. I usually just give up and pay the steep fee to park in the small lot next door. There isn’t an official loading door for the club, so being right next the venue means once you’ve negotiated the uneven sidewalk / parking lot pavement, you’re in the front door and it’s a straight approach to the stage. As always, the house production crew was ready for action when we arrived and the night went smoothly. Our set was great, and I think this was the best show we’ve ever played. After reviewing the original DM recordings I made some changes to my guitar parts for this show, and it felt much better to me during the entire set. The vocalist from the Morrissey tribute commented that my tone was dead-on, which is nice coming from a fellow musician hearing us for the first time. When recreating studio recordings in a live setting, the devil is definitely in the details.

Overall, a great weekend of gigs. I’m looking forward to the next ones.