By Ronny North
I thought I’d talk about what happens when your gear acts up and you get hit with several things all at once.
Once again, we were called to do a last minute show at a local club called the Blue Café. They let us know a week before the show (on 11/29). I like to have a minimum of a month to promote shows properly so here I was in a bind to get stuff done and to get ready for our show. To top it off, we just got a brand new bassist Bryan who has only been with us for a few weeks.
Well, I’m always up for a challenge.
First thing I had to do was have my assistant Karen create a flier for the show. She did it asap and I immediately sent it out on our e-mail list and on my Myspace page. Then we needed to get rehearsals going before the show. Oh, did I mention that I got a last minute call to do the Primespot Radio Show on Dec 1st? They wanted me to come on at 10pm and hang on the air for a bit. Like I said when it rains it pours.
I got back with the Radio Station and told them I’d come down for the interview. I figured it’d be a great chance to push our show on Dec 6th. I immediately put out the word that I was appearing on the show on Friday night. It is all about promotion so you need to take these opportunities when they appear.
I arrived at the Radio Station at 10pm on Dec 1st and we had a blast on the air talking about what I had going on and the upcoming show. Kari the show host has been a long time supporter of my music and regularly plays my stuff on her show. Of course we played lots of my music while I was in the studio. It went great and I had a chance to get the word out about the Blue Café gig. The great thing about the Primespot show is that it goes out on the air and over the Internet so everyone can listen from all over.
When I arrived home after the interview I checked my inbox and was very surprised from all the e-mails I received from everyone who listened to my interview. Everyone seemed to enjoy it (always great!!).
After talking with my band, we decided to rehearse the day before the show just to run through the songs we were going to play. We went through everything and were ready to go except for some gear issues I was having.
On that note, my loaner amp decided it was going to freak out (a few weeks before my actual amp caught on fire… REALLY!!). That is a whole article in itself.
I called my friend at the amp company and he said to bring in the loaner and he would swap it for another one. So on Monday I had to get yet another loaner amp from my endorser. Well, of course the loaner amp wouldn’t function properly with my G-System switching unit at rehearsals. After fiddling with everything much to my band member’s dismay, I finally gave up and unhooked everything and just used a delay pedal and the amp’s foot-switch.
This stuff always happens the day before shows.
Now of course when I was packing up after rehearsal, I lost a pin that holds the handle on my pedal board case (great!!). After practice on the way home I stopped by the local hardware store to see if I could find a pin to fix my handle. After going through everything we didn’t find anything that would work. Finally we decided a kotter pin would be a good temporary fix until I found the right part.
When I got home I decided to set up my rig and to try to figure out the problem.
As with most guitar players that I know, if the guitar doesn’t sound right to me it really messes with my mind and my playing. Well, I couldn’t figure it out and out of desperation I decided to pull out my old head from the garage to see if it worked with the rig. Well I hooked it up and crossed my fingers since I hadn’t used it in ages (you never know with old tube heads!!).
It sounded great!!!! Everything was working properly now!!!! I even decided to use my old white Tipton guitar as well (it was cool to use a Floyd again). Now I was really kicking old school with my old rig. I was now ready to go. On that note, I was supposed to get my first set of prototype Ronny North WB Pickups so I could try them out at the show. Of course they arrived only a couple hours before show time so I didn’t have time to install them (damn!!)
When we arrived at the club, I briefed my guitar tech Tim on how I went back to using my old gear. He looked it over and had me set up in no time.
It was cool that we were the first band on so we had some time to get set up on the stage and make sure everything was functioning correctly before we played (it was)
We always arrive an hour before we go on to make sure everything is cool. Well we hit the stage on time and the crowd was great. For some reason even though there was a lot of lighting on the stage it was still dark on the stage floor and I couldn’t see my pedal board correctly and managed to hit a few wrong buttons through out the set (stay tuned for an article on making gear stage ready). Oh well, welcome to the wonderful world of live music.
I just kept going and also was battling tuning problems from the cold weather. My guitars were battling me the whole time but I just kept going and had a blast anyway. It’s all part of the deal.
In the end we survived. My bassist Bryan played perfectly and the crowd and promoter really dug it and best of all we won over some new fans.
My point is you can’t let the bad stuff get to you. You have to rise above and be the best performer you can be.
Ronny North plays his own signature brand of instrumental guitar rock and is fast becoming a So Cal guitar hero. He has appeared in several national and international music publications, including this one each week.
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