Thoughts On The 10/10 1 Uppers Gig
On Saturday 10/10 The 1 Uppers played at Conor Byrne in Ballard. It was a fun evening of music despite the band being a man short. The other guitarist, Kris, was unavailable that night so I held down electric guitar duties on my own. One thing I definitely noticed was that I don’t have nearly his depth of great licks as a guitarist. But I enjoyed being able to fill a little more space with denser patches. Overall it was a fun night and I look forward to having Kris rejoin us for the next gig.
Jon Hyde did his usual amazing job of playing great pedal steel on every song. He never seems to run out of ideas, and I love hearing him drop chord substitutions into the changes. Caben and Eric are rock-solid in the rhythm section, and David does a fine job on lead vocals. The 1 Uppers continues to be a very satisfying musical experience for me, and I feel fortunate to be in the band with great friends.
My amp sounded pretty good. This is the first 1 Uppers gig that I’ve played since having it reworked by Velvetone. The tonal balance seems better and it doesn’t break up at such a low volume. I can understand why this is Fender’s most popular guitar amp of all time. It’s really a great piece of equipment. I’m still messing with my patches on the PodXT Live, but I think I’m settling into a good collection of general-purpose patches for this band. I’ll be working on my pedalboard setup over the next few weeks, and hopefully this will give me an opportunity to tweak settings with the whole system.
The next 1 Uppers gig is coming up in a few weeks. We’re working on some covers for a multi-band show. More info to come…