Thoughts On The 1 Uppers Gigs 8/21 and 8/23
Last weekend I played 2 shows with my country band The 1 uppers. Friday night’s show was the Conor Byrne. The regulars who frequent the bar are big fans of music in general and they seem especially enthusiastic about country. We were last on a bill of three bands, which meant we were subject to the late starts and late finishes of each of the bands before us… by the time we took the stage it was well after midnight. We played many of the songs which we’re currently recording for our CD and threw in a couple of cover selections as well. I have been experimenting with using just the Telecaster, straight into my Hot Rod Deluxe with nothing else in the signal chain. This does sound good, but I found myself wishing I had a little more tonal variety available. I had a bit of trouble with the output jack of the tele; the cord kept falling out and I couldn’t seem to get it to lock into place. Some soldering will be in my near future. I didn’t get home until after 2:30 which is quite a bit later than usual. Fortunately I managed to sleep in until around 9:00 the next morning, which allowed me to be fairly productive on a home remodeling project.
On Sunday we played again, this time a mercifully early show at the Sunset in Ballard. This is a classic local bar that is legendary for its vibe. I decided to bring the strat instead of my tele, and also brought the Pod XTLive for some tone shaping. The addition of slight compression and delay makes a big difference in the feel of the guitar; it was worth the extra bit of gear for this gig. The other bands on the bill were very good, and it was fun to see friends who live in the area. During “Luxury Liner” we Kris spun a long solo that was a wild run of tricky licks. There’s no denying how good he is. This was one of his trademark jaw-droppers. Playing in a band with him and Jon Hyde is amazing. They’re great musicians who continually surprise us with great ideas. At the end of the night we celebrated another successful gig. The next show is a few weeks off because some members of the band will be traveling for work and other projects. We’ll get back to 1 Upping again soon.