Straussiepalooza Recap

First of all, I don't agree with it, but I am using the apparently more popular "Straussiepalooza" spelling despite my objection. You don't call me Timmie, so I don't call it Straussiepalooza. It's with a Y bitches. Sigh...

Second, if you didn't notice, there's a new link on the left to my flickr pictures. The only ones that are up right now are about 130 from the day of the concert. My friend Dustin and his wife took all but the first few pre-show shots and I must say that they look fantastic. It shows that you get what you pay for when it comes to cameras and fancy lenses and it also helps to know what you're doing. Thanks you two!

Third, get to the recap! Ok! My brother and I arrived at our friend Greg's place around 1:00. We did a final gear check to make sure we had all the needed cables and such. We loaded some stuff into our cars and then headed over to Punch Pizza around 2:00 for some punches...er pizzas and then headed back to Greg's. With the bleak prospect of sitting around for over an hour with very little to do looming, the three of us instead went for a walk to get a lil' exercise. Well, I got exercise shuffling behind the two of them while they walked. We got back, jammed for a little bit, then did the final packing of the cars and headed to the theater around 4:15.

We arrived a little before 5:00 and took a couple pictures in front of the theater and marquee (no, we weren't listed otherwise there would have been 100 pictures of it). We brought our stuff inside and started to set up. The sound guy (Zach) showed up and helped us through a relatively painless soundcheck and we only had a little time to kill before the show.

The show started around 7:20 in front of around 100 people (we didn't get a definitive count, although Ben says 93). Without going through a song-by-song recap, it basically went very well. Being a perfectionist, I know what things I screwed up on and they still bug me since we practiced so much, but overall the three of us played well.

Oh, I almost forgot a little behind-the-scenes tidbit: The second song featured all three of us playing the first song we wrote and played at the first Straussiepalooza. Due to equipment restrictions, the third guitar was not going directly into the soundboard like the other two but instead picked up by a mic next to the acoustic amp it was plugged into. (Got all that?) So I came out to join the two of them and picked up the Yamaha. I wanted to get rolling on the song and stop the butterflies so I was focused and forgot to turn on the amp. I didn't realize it was off until about 30 seconds into the song...and there's not much I could do at that point. So for that song, only the three of us heard what I was playing. Kind of a bummer because it was a nice high part over what Greg and Ben were playing, but what can you do? :)

I'll take a quick moment to talk about our gear, or should I say Greg's gear. Basically everything you see in the pictures is Greg's except for the clothes Ben and I are wearing. He plays a Taylor, Ben and I shared his new Gibson (not sure of the model) and on the one song with all three of us, I played a Yamaha. Greg played a song on his blue Fender Strat and then one on his Matin without the help of the PA system. Apparently both of those worked pretty well, but I didn't hear either because I was "backstage" tuning. I say "backstage" because there was no area behind us. There were dressing rooms underneath/behind the seating and the best thing I can compare them to is a fashion show/dance hall-type dressing room: lots of mirrors surrounded by lights.

We were able to record the show (audio) but it's in the useless .mov format so I have to somehow rip the audio from it and then tinker with it. The quality on a few songs is decent, but on others it is downright rotten...and I have no idea what could have changed during the show. Also, for some reason only the right channel works and not the left. Why? I have nooooo idea. Hopefully I can figure out a way to fix it soon.

After the show, we cleaned up, packed up the gear, and went to a few nearby bars. Since I hadn't eaten in about 8 hours at that point, I had a tasty burger and beer with friends. After playing guitar so much in the last few weeks, it was honestly a relief to be done but it was a good show and everyone I talked to seemed to have a good time. Mission accomplished!