Thank you!!! I feel priviledged that I do what I do. The fact that I know that the pay checks of the bar owner, managers, and wait staff are contingent upon what I do on a given night is something that I take seriously. Contrary to some of the strawman arguments that people have thrown up in the past, I never claimed that I was a great bass player nor that my band's the best (though I have called old sKool one of the best guitarists in Central PA). I don't have a rockstar attitude. Instead, I have a Been there, done that, got the T-shirt attitude, which may seem arrogant to people who don't quite understand the difference yet. When I say something like, "There's a reason why there's a $700 difference between a Mesa/Boogie Traditional cab and a Behringer cab," it's something I have experience with. Some people don't like what I have to say, and that's fine. What I won't do is blow smoke about something when I have no clue what I'm talking about. But didn't mean to go off on that tangent...VENTGtr wrote:Think it also needs pointed out that just because you get paid doesn't mean you like/love, etc. doing this any less than someone who is willing to play for free. To the contrary, I've found that, more often than not, people who approach this as a business of sorts expect more of themselves than those who don't. Not saying that's always the case, but in general.
But back to the original post - I just cannot fathom a cover band that always hires an opener because they don't have enough material to fill an entire night. Seriously, it shouldn't take a group of seasoned players more than two months at the most to be fully gig-ready. Bad Daze was already an established gigging band by the time I joined. I think that I had two and a half weeks to learn their entire set list - minus about five songs that I already knew from previous projects - and then I was out playing my first gig. Obviously, it wasn't perfect, and there were a few song sections I had to "fake" until I had more time to learn them correctly. I think that I had a month and a half to learn 70+ songs when I filled in with Plush this summer. I had one rehershal and I was playing a gig the next night. Again, it wasn't perfect, but tightness with new musicians doesn't happen over night. My point is that I just cannot understand why it is so hard to learn 45 songs to play an entire show. Unless these bands are covering Dream Theater and Yes, it shouldn't be that difficult.
