Battle of the Bands Benefit

Last night, our band played a long set at the Boquete Community Players theater for a fund raiser for said organization.

They have never had a dance with live music so this was new and risky.  To take some of the risk away and boost the attendance, 2 bands were playing at the event.

For the last 9 months, there have been two bands in town.

We have been playing for a year and a half, and the newer, upstarts have been playing for 9 months.

There is, of course, talk about which band is better.

Let me regress for a moment about the event.

I was reluctant to do it.  If we were going to play a set and that was it, I was fine.  But, noooooo, they wanted to put the 2 bands together for a set so we would play together.

It is a lot of work to play a new song.  I didn't want to put all that work into learning not one but 6 new songs that we would never play again.

A waist of time, in my world.

The real reason is that the other band has one of the best guitar players in rock anywhere in the world, much less our little berg of Boquete.  There is no way I wanted to step on stage with a virtuoso.

What, you think I'm crazy?  Who would want to do that?

So there I was, enduring 3 long, long, long, long rehearsals, learning new music that I knew would end up sounding like crap because it is really hard to get new stuff to sound good right out of the box.  And having all my inadequacies exposed by a much better guitar player.

Now back to which band is better.

As is typical, the comparison is not apples to apples.

They are a blues band with better musicianship, playing for themselves and the spirit of hot licks.

We are a dance band with a great singer/entertainer out front and we shape our music to the crowd with compelling, hot dance music.

There is no doubt, we are more popular.  No contest.  Playing to the crowd always trumps quality unless you are in a special venue set up for avid music buffs and listening.

And, the competitive situation never was present in the event with the musicians...mainly with the patrons.

And, I hate to tell you, I was right.  Several of our joint songs were pretty bad.

In the end, our band had a ball, played fairly well, the crowd loved us.  We got to play in a more professional environment with a big sound system and sound man...always good to play in an upgraded place.

The other band was also well receiver, played very well, and the crowd appreciated them.

All in all, those attending had a blast.  Another crazy, fun night in Boquete!

As a side note, when the Jazz and Blues Festival was here in March, the other band was invited to play several times during the event.  We were not invited.  Clearly, this type of event required better musicianship favoring them.

If I am honest, it did sting a little not being invited.