Yella recruited a lady to sing Indigo Girls with her a while back. Her husband is an extremely good guitarist. Originally, he was going to accompany them and maybe, and I stress maybe, I would join them.
On the appointed day of the first rehearsal, I had to make an emergency trip to David so I would miss it. And, if I missed the first rehearsal, I was not going to play with them because it just would be too intimidating at that point to catch up.
To add to the drama of the day, the power went off everywhere around Boquete. Do you think we would get used to this by now! But nooooo. We were surprised. What's it going to take for this to soak in?
Somehow, I got back from David early. I know, you are saying, in Panama early is impossible. What happened? There are small pockets of extremely competent services here, belief it or not. I used a tire store that is one of them. I had a new tire, mounted and balanced, with the spare tire serviced, in under 30 minutes. Not bad. And they did not speak any English, not I Spanish.
So, to make a long story longer, (don't you hate it when someone says, "to make a long story short" when the short version would have been over 30 minutes ago!), I ended up over at the rehearsal...by accident...ya, that's it, by accident. No, no, I didn't really want to play again. It just worked out that way...you know what I mean...ya, sure...
I was intimidated to play with Gordon because he is good. But, I knew the cords to one of the songs so I thought I had a head start and I could bungle through it. The real truth is that he is generous and non-judgmental (isn't that an oxymoron? Is there anyone left on earth that is non-judgmental?) so he was kind and made me feel a little more secure in participating. Bless him!
Of course, after the first rehearsal, I went into major practice to try and stay ahead of the game! If I couldn't play well, at least I would know the material better than him.
A little aside about playing guitar. When you start, your fingers get REALLY tender, this is code talk for "they hurt like hell!" It takes time to build up calluses and finger strength. It is important to pace yourself. Well, I couldn't pace myself. I was under the gun and pedaling fast to keep up.
So, I have REALLY sore fingers. We've been playing everyday. Way too much for starting to play again after a 30 year hiatus.
We worked up 3 great songs, well sung, well arranged and, if I might say so myself, well played. We all were anxious to see how people liked them.
They had a gig in a restaurant last night and invited us to play the 3 songs. This is very generous. Most people aren't willing to share their stage with you.
We were a big hit. Sounded good. Except for the normal booboos in live performance, everything went well.
Today, their was an huge open mike at another bar and restaurant. So, again, to a bigger and more enthusiastic crowd, we not only played the 3 songs with them, but Yella and I played a couple of songs by ourselves.
I liked it a lot. So did Yella. We have people clamoring for us to play at their restaurants and bars.
Have we created a monster?
Is this our second childhood or what?
A little side bar on live performing...
A piano player tried to play Neil Young's "Southern Man" with us. Only one problem. He kept playing the wrong cords. Sounded like shit in places. For the most part, nobody notices because it is noisy in the bar and their is the speed of live performance.
Except for the other musicians, who have good ears! One kept asking me if my guitar was in tune. So I would strum a cord to prove it was in tune but I could see he couldn't hear through the noise and he still thought I was out of tune.
So now, someone is running around town telling everyone that I play out of tune. (Or so I imagine)
Oh well. You can't have it all!
It was a big music weekend!
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