Saturday was my first gig with the Relix, and it was a lot of fun and a big success for a number of reasons. For me it was my first paying gig with a rock band at a bar since Lizzy was a baby. Not only that, it was my first gig ever where they had valet parking once I unloaded my car. It was a nice place and a big room, and a good crowd, right in downtown White Plains.
I suppose now is a good time to mention the lineup of the band. On lead vocals is Paul, who is also a wicked harmonica a player. The rhythm section is Mike on bass and Gus on drums. Both are really solid and also sing backup. We have two guitarists. Frank is more straight-ahead rock and solos on the heavier stuff. Lee has more of a twangy sound and plays either a hollowbody or a twelve-string.
As mentioned before I was playing sax and keyboards and singing. For me it was a drastic improvement from nothing at all back in August. For the band it was an incremental improvement, but the consensus was that I brought the whole thing up a notch with my contribution. It seemed to go over well. Indeed, three different chicks offered to buy me a drink.
We did three sets that spanned a diverse range of material. First was a lot of classic soul by artists like Sam and Dave, Otis Redding, Wilson Picket, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, and Martha Reeves. These were mainly sax tunes for me. Then there was classic rock by groups like The Zombies, The Doors, Deep Purple, Traffic, Ten Years After, and Creedence. These were mainly organ and Rhodes tunes. Got a few nice organ solos in on Light My Fire, Hush, and Give Me Some Lovin’. We had some eighties stuff like Tom Petty, Greg Kihn, Tommy Tutone, John Cougar and the Romantics. Not stuff I would have picked, but they’re fun to play and go over well with the crowd, and I got to sing a couple of these. Then there’s a bunch of surf stuff from the likes of the Venutres and Johnny Rivers. For this I played alot of sax to try and give it a Tequila/Comanche sound.
The set was not perfect, but I was pretty satisfied overall. The energy was there and the crowd response was really good, and there were some excellent musical moments. The parts that I was worried about seemed to pass as barely noticeable from a audience perspective. For the most part it was hesitation over segues in some of the medleys, but that can be fixed with some more practice. For my own part, up until now I was mainly concerned with learning all the music. I had to learn fifty songs in two months! I only stopped using sheet music the last rehearsal before the show. I got thru the show without forgetting any parts or getting lost, although there were a few clams here and there. From here on I can concentrate more on performing the songs, listening to band and really taking it to the next level.
Nowhere is this more true than the songs where I was singing lead. I sang lead on four songs, and got thru them all without forgetting any of the lyrics. Now I need to focus more on connecting with the audience, being loud and clear and not looking down at my hands as I play. It’s good to have a chance to improve my singing and performing. From here things can only get better.
http://zingman.com/music/relix/vintagelounge101213/relix_soul_medley_2.mov
http://zingman.com/music/relix/vintagelounge101213/relix_light_my_fire.mov
http://zingman.com/music/relix/vintagelounge101213/relix_breakup_song.mov
