Thoughts On The 10/9 1 Uppers Performance
On Sunday 10/9 the 1 Uppers performed at the Sunset Tavern in Ballard. This venue feels like home to me, given the large number of regular performances I have there with the Dudley Manlove Quartet. This was another very enjoyable show with the 1 Uppers, and we’re continuing to develop our musical communication onstage.
When I play at the Sunset with DMQ, I’m over on stage left which means I’m standing more or less behind the PA mains in a dark corner of the stage. I do jump out and stand on the subwoofer for big solos, but most of the time I’m pretty tightly tucked back into that corner. With the 1 Uppers I tend to be on stage right, standing behind Jon Hyde on pedal steel. So this gave me a nice open area in which to play. Always good to have a little room to roam 🙂
The show was part of a triple bill. Fortunately we were on first and it meant that we could get a soundcheck – AND it meant we were done at a mercifully early hour. Our set consisted of mostly originals with a few selected covers. For this show I brought a pretty lightweight rig, consisting of the Fender Hot Rod Deluxe and my micro-pedalboard (Line6 M9 + Ernie Ball volume pedal). I’m working on putting together a new pedalboard base for those two items, which should be small enough to fit into an Anvil briefcase. It’ll make an easy rig for fly dates. During the course of the show I switched guitars several times between regular electric guitar to baritone guitar. I’m finding that playing baritone guitar is a great experience and clears some space in the mix where the other guitars reside. The 1 Uppers have a number of gigs coming up in the next month and I think it’ll be great for our sound. Always a delight playing music with great friends!