I once performed with a country music band

Not HAM related, but  an amusing story no less.

Circa 2001-2002, I was hanging around with a band. My music teachers band to be specific. I was the roadie who filled in on bass guitar for a while. 

We had a local following, and could do everything from Italian instrumentals (often the opening set at restaurants during dinner) and top it off with some old rock classics that kept the over 40s buying drinks.. and sometimes.. loosing their guts like teenagers in the carpark. 

It being a band run by a music teacher made it interesting. We often did things around student performances. 

This one fateful day, a recital was being held at a local restaurant. The idea was the students would go all afternoon, a renowned local country band would perform during the dinner service, then we'd keep the bar running until close. 

The day started off like those days often did. Getting to the venue mid morning, dragging in gear, tuning kids guitars, trying to calm the nerves of the adult students, tuning more guitars, plugging in amps, keyboards and running cables. Then there's the sound checks.. heaps of students some wanting to use their own amplifiers and gear, so they'd all have to be sound checked into venue appropriate volumes that dealt with the unusual venue acoustics (simply it wasn't a great room to play music in). 

Finally the kids start playing. Things get serious. They tinker, tunings need to be double checked, tensions are high and expectations of parents are high. After that few hours of unpaid stress, it's time to clear everyone out so we can try to fit two bands worth of gear on a single stage and make it all work. 

The country band PA is king, and we're using that. They can't fit the fold backs because the stage is narrow. They layout the stage in their preferred pattern. The bass player is on the opposite side of the drummer to everyone else. Not really normal, but um.. OK. 

Getting close to time, they get word that the bass player isn't coming. His daughter was off in the city and in trouble, so he was off dealing with her. They wouldn't play without a bass player. Our lead guitarist (my music teacher) was already doing fill in guitar duty for them.   

The venue owner was then told that the country band wouldn't play. His response was along the lines of "you both play or no one plays". 

Bugger.

I don't like country music. I was however brought up on Slim Dusty, and I was kinda familiar with The Highwaymen. Not that this really helped me. 

I had no choice - I needed to play with these guys. There was no practice time with them and their music sheets had just what key the songs were in. My theory isn't that good and not being familiar with most of the songs meant that I really had no idea. 

What I really hadn't considered was the stage. I was on a narrow stage next to a drummer beside a PA speaker facing away from me. My amp was underpowered for performing.. it just worked as a DI to put my sound into the PA. I couldn't hear myself, I couldn't hear the guitars. I just heard drums. If I could see the guitars, I could get an idea. 

So, hearing nothing more than drums and bits of the mix coming through a PA that was as old as the old bloke that owned them.. so missing a lot of the low end, I was effectively deaf. 

Smile, and palm mute. A palm mute is a percussive sound guitars and bass plays use. Bass players can get some nice low end with it and done right doesn't have any real discernible note to it. So I did a lot of that. I recall breathing a sigh of relief when we started playing Slim Dusty's Lights on the Hill. I at least knew how that song went and managed to actually play real notes. 

By this point it was around 7pm. I'd been in the venue since 11am and performing for the past 2 hours... 

During the band change, I dragged my amp to the other side of the stage, moved the drum riser and transplanted myself where I needed to be - between the guitar and drums. Where I could hear. We were also a louder band, and I discovered that the bass amp I was using could in fact throw a little out of it. Quite a bit actually. A quick rotate it to 10 while the lead guitarist was tuning up and we were ready to go with our sets. We'd need to play to perhaps 10.30-11.00pm depending on how many punters were still buying drinks. 

Dinner service was winding down, so the room lights dulled and the stage lights come on. 8.5 hours in, 2 hours already on stage, half an hour during our break reorganising the stage in full view of the punters and now I've got a couple thousand watts of light on me. Yay. 

We played. We kept playing. Our lead guitarist had commented at some stage that he was gonna make me solo. I'd been adamant that wasn't happening. 

Our last set ended with Johnny B. Goode. By this time of night the volume is right up on everything, the punters are loaded and starting to look worse for wear, so it's time for that one last hurrah. We start playing it.. fast. I use a pretty standard bass riff as a foundation, but it's repetitive and the hands start to ache quickly because of that. The faster you play it, the sooner the aching.. and cramps start. 

I'm facing the lead guitarist as he's going into his exceptionally long first solo and he's looking into my eyes... he knows how to read them.. he knows that I'm in pain. With a cheeky grin we're back to the next verse and up to the second the solo soon after. These solos are going for minutes at a time and people are loving it. And I'm hurting. Finally, the third solo starts and gets into it.. that cheeky grin is getting bigger.. he can see I'm about to break. 

For the non-musicians benefit - one does not simply "stop" playing because of broken strings, bleeding, cramps, or whatever. You harden up and keep playing. Sometimes you just have to do something different to make it hurt less. 

He knows with his decades of playing experience that I'm hurting because I'm playing a repetitive riff that moves around the fret board. He knows that I know that the only way I can break that pattern is go off the deep end. I'm currently driving the rhythm section, so I can't hide. 8 bars into the third solo and I'm done. There's no choice. 

I did my first bass solo in a band on a stage to people who aren't music students. It probably lasted 30 seconds. It felt like 3 hours. 

Finally that blasted song.. and our set ended. He got his damned bass solo. The punters were mostly so far gone that they loved it anyway. 

It's now 11pm, and we need to strip the stage, pack it up and go home. I haven't really eaten, having missed lunch thanks to the students and dinner due to the stage change. I had however had plenty of golden liquid refreshment as the night had worn on. 1am, I'm dumped home..  some 15 hours after I left. Insanely tired from 5 1/2 hours performing, countless guitar tunings, and so on and so forth. Hungry, drunk, tired and too full of adrenaline that comes from performing, I can't even recall what happened next. Knowing me, I likely crawled into bed and stared at the ceiling.

That was also the last time I ever performed with a band. Life, work, all those things, all seemed to get in the way.