An old guitar buddy called and asked if I wanted to do a steakout gig with him. It would be us two, my old guitarist and his drummer. I should have known better - it was 4.5 hrs and we were getting $100 each. I had to drive an hour to get there, thinking I'd be late, but my old guitarist got stuck in the same traffic jam as I did but didn't take a detour.

The music was the same old stuff we played 10 yrs ago when I played with him. My guitarist friend had mellowed a bit and didn't seem as much on his game as I remembered. The tempo was a step short and the drumming - well, let's just say the drumming was the weak link for me. The PA was a Mackie 808s with two unmatched cabinets. The EQ was horrible and I tried a couple times to go over and adjust my channel but couldn't completely get myself out of that low EQ delay tunnel.

I blew the band away with my setup - they loved the s910 and were amazed at the Bose Compact. I split the keyboard and played left hand bass all night, very strong with no problems thru the Compact. Then I keyed up a couple midis and surprisingly enough the drummer did the best job keeping up, the band leader stood mostly stunned at the sound and tried to play along very quietly.

All in all, it was fun to play with live bodies again, it was an easy job, the music was sloppy but good enough and being with guys I hadn't seen in a few years made the $100 worthwhile.

Tomorrow I play my standard one hr NH job by myself with only my equipment, entertain about half as many people as we did last night and walk away a happy man with - you guessed it, $100.