Great Outdoors

Ahh, summer … the time of year when folks go outdoors to hear music at various festivals, parks, street fairs, etc. It’s so nice, walking around in the breeze and hearing the tunes.

Well this bass player hates it.

Playing outside is a drag. Almost every experience I’ve had playing outside has been mediocre-terrible. First off, my bass hates it. It’s either too hot or too humid and both of those things create a bad sound, difficulty playing, and intonation problems. The soundman is always terrible. You see when you play at a club or a theater you are usually working with a soundman who works at the venue all of the time. When you play outside the soundman usually comes from some instrument and equipment rental joint and is about 3 months removed from selling strings at Guitar Center and jamming with his sub-par garage band. There are no acoustics outdoors so the speaker mains are too loud and nothing onstage has any resonance. Then you have a crowd of people who have more fun sucking down plastic glasses of wine and slurping Sno Cones than they do watching the music. Eh, you get about 20 ft. or so of fans who are into the performance and enjoying the music. But from 21 ft. and back it’s nothing but folks talking and kids running around.

Needless to say I had a gig with Tyrell tonight that was outdoors. And another one tomorrow that is as well.

Here’s to a mediocre day tomorrow.