I had a couple of interesting gigs with the Aaron Pritchett band this month. I have always benefited in my career as being a guy who plays a few instruments (keyboards and saxophone tie for first - bass is next on the list an guitar would be fourth - flute and other instruments barely qualify but depending on your standards of quality I play a few others as well). With Aaron's band currently having a rotating bass guitar chair I have been thrust in the rotating instrumentalist role. I enjoy it because it keeps me thinking. We played Calgary's Rodeo Royale on Thursday which is a precursor to their famous Calgary Stampede. The gig was good although not as enthusiastic as most other AP gigs - due to the fact that the Calgary Flames were in the venue right next to us in a do or die playoff game. This was the second gig for Darren Parris - a tremendous bass player known mostly for his work with singer Daniel Powter (remember 'Bad Day' from American Idol? That's DP on bass). Darren kicked some serious ass on this gig and the band loves him which is good as he was my recommendation - no one except myself knew him.
However as Darren is working with singer Hayley Sales on her upcoming debut he was unable to join us for the gigs in Banff so to save some headaches I was elected to play the bass and double where I could on keyboards. It was good - the only thing really lacking from the gig in it's normal 6 piece configuration were the rhythm guitar parts. However Mike Sanyshyn, Mitch Merrett and I rallied and they covered some of the crucial rhythm parts. 75% of the keyboard parts I played with my right hand while fretting the notes on the bass with my right - easier on the ballads but tricky on some of the up-tempo numbers like Perfectly Blue (which is a 12/8 thing with a feel a la 'Sea Of Love' or 'Treat Me Like A Fool'). I enjoyed watching our stage tech Warren laughing at me as I played both instruments and sang harmonies - it was pretty amusing. I managed to cover everything with minimal error - so much so that I reprised this role for our gig in Boston.
Our gig outside of Boston (in Waltham at Bentley College) was an eye opener for me. Aaron's people have been trying to make inroads for his career in the US and has started looking into college gigs like this. Aaron is generally an unknown artist in the US so I wasn't expecting a huge reaction. However what was reenforced to me in this gig was the power of the internet and downloadable music. A lot of the people attending the shows knew a lot of Aaron's tunes (we even got a request for 'You Can't Say That I Didn't Love You', a tune from the first album). I could feel the "ground beginning to break'. Anyhow - fun gig and nice people.
When I get home amongst other things we begin demos for the next record with Aaron.... looking forward to getting creative!
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