rehearsals and empty restaurants

Today I had a couple of rehearsals. One for the TV show tomorrow, and the other for an event this friday.

The TV show should be interesting, mainly because it’s a new thing for me. I did one about 5 years ago in Guangzhou for a talent competition. The singer of our R&B band had entered, and for the final we went to perform a song.

This one is apparently for original compositions. It seems there are many of these ‘idol’ type shows these days.

Anyway, we prepared 3 songs. One punk, one 12/4 rock ballad and one…..well I guess we could classify it in the vast "jazz" category.

The second rehearsal is for an event this friday. Gypsy jazz kind of stuff we played at a wedding a few weeks ago. Now the singer and guitarist want it more arranged and orchestrated. I think it’s a good idea to do this for certain projects. Especially in Shanghai where things often go unrehearsed and endings of songs are improvised and executed on the spot.

That’s cool for the musicians, but it doesn’t take into consideration the audience too much. Often songs might drag on with multiple soloists taking long solos and stretching out the song to 7….10…..sometimes even 20 minutes.

These days with internet and smart phones, people don’t have the attention span even for half a minute! So I think to get more people interested, keep the songs short. However, if people are dancing or whatever, it's good to be able to extend a song to keep the vibe happening. To be able to change or adapt to the situation.

Then we had the 3rd night in a row at Lynn restaurant. It was a shame no one was there, we had the band sounding pretty good tonight.

There was one table for the first set, then just the staff for the 2nd, and they cancelled the 3rd and sent us home early.

It has potential to be a decent gig. I guess more people need to know about it. And they need a decent bass amp…. But I won’t go there again.

One funny thing is this huge poster of Tony Hall as you walk in the door.

Haha!!!

I'm not sure what to say about it......... just........ it's huge...... and glad it's not me up there!