Happy 2012! Fantastic last gig of the year, fantastic first open mic of the year – I’m a pretty chipper rob. There was a smooch today, with a backdrop of the first snowfall of the year and We’re About 9 on the stereo. I think I’m enamoured with the world – even though it’s only my small little part of it that seems to be going well.
Plus or minus my affection for wool socks in dry weather resulting in a zap on the nose that sounded like Indiana Jones disarming a miscreant.
The New Year’s Eve show wasn’t technically OUR New Year’s Eve show, but we certainly guerillaed in effectively and Hands thundered out onto a snazzily-dressed and sparkly-clad audience that probably had no real idea what was happening to them. A couple of guys came up and tossed compliments at Heather (Hell, who wouldn’t? She was pretty damned stunning drumming in that little dress!) and a very drunk young woman decided it was okay to caress my tresses.
My hair is just craaaaazy, you know?
Carbon Leaf was pretty wonderful. It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten to listen to such a monster on an electric guitar, and the rhythm section (bass and drums especially) was just SO much fun, sometimes swinging away from the pop / Celtic / madness that is Carbon Leaf and into some funkier lines, occasionally even pushing into full-out disco. They played “Desperation Song” which is one of my favourites and ended the night with an absolutely bad-ass version of Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion”.
Carbon Leaf gear vs… Still looking over Carbon Leaf’s gear. The irony of looking at all these pedals is that you couldn’t hear the effects of ANY of this stuff during the performance. Pedals…. continued. All in all I know for the lead guitarist / mandolin player / viola da gambist there were two EQ pedals, a Tonebone multi-instrument DI, an LR Baggs DI, some sort of amp-based channel selector, a loop station, a Banshee vox box, another digital delay / looper thingie, another multichannel amp stomp box, two other distortions, a fuzz box, a compressor and two or three reverbs, an octave pedal and… and plenty of stuff I could identify before getting to the volume pedal on the end. vs ilyAIMY gear… vs… wait, who’s stuff is this?!
We hung out till midnight and watched the… wow… really? The official DJ of Underarmor (yeah, the fact that “official DJ” of NFL’s favourite underwear sort of lowbrows the whole thing – we were doing fine right up till “HAVE A RAVENS 2012!!!” – pretty frakkin tacky) count us down to 2012. He dropped balloons to accompanying boodja and we carefully retrieved our gear from the green room and snuck out of the hotel. Slowly we made our way through the crowds to the cars and discovered that the best place to see the fireworks of both the Harbour and Fells Point was the fourth floor of the Hyatt Regency hotel’s parking garage. Who knew? We wove our way through weaving pedestrians, made our way to the edge of the city and got home in time to watch Muppets and cone snails with Amy and her beau back at the house.
I’ve never done BIG New Year’s Eve before. Our show with Carbon Leaf was about 2000 people in the heart of the Baltimore’s Inner Harbour and was loud, lusty and frenetic and isn’t what I plan to do next year, but it was still an awful lot of fun.
Happy New Year!!
The disadvantage of bigger shows is the prep time. We had a 4pm load-in and a 4.30pm sound-check – for a 9pm showtime. That meant that after all the sound and lights had been dialed on it was time to wait… and wait… and wait…. So sue me – the hats weren’t big enough and the pretty, pretty tiara fit me perfectly!! And so, after everything’s ready to go and dinner was captured in the Harbour, it’s time for naps! And naps….
sahffi fixes mOsno’s hair for the big show! Heather cleans up pretty well, doesn’t she? Oh – you knew that already?
ilyMOHFFI rocking at the Hyatt Regency in Baltimore, MD. some ilyAIMY, some Carbon Leaf, mOsno, and sahffi all comingling. Note that because Carbon Leaf is well-recognized, only WE had to be tagged “talent”! Snert… yeah, that’s a pretty accurate depiction of our audience demographic for New Year’s Eve.
Kristen and I, in sensible shoes, celebrated with fervent honking Baltimore’s New Year’s Partay comingling. Baboom. Who knew? The fourth floor of the Regency Hyatt Hotel and Conference Center in the Harbor in Baltimore City, MD was the perfect place to catch the fireworks of both the Harbour AND Fells Point. Watching points of light scintillate off the water and the neighbouring glass-fronted buildings (including the Aquarium) was a beautiful way to wrap up New Year’s Eve!
