Registered: 12/08/02
Posts: 15576
Loc: Forest Hill, MD USA
Last night my wife and I, plus two friends whom are staying with us till the weather improves and they can sail their boat to Bimini, went to dinner at Bahama Breeze. At 6:20 a guitar player stepped on stage, fired up his electric guitar and kicked off with a somewhat Caribbean routine. He used a cheap drum machine triggered with a foot switch, sang through a Shure SM58, and he used a pair of 10-inch Fender speakers which sat on the floor.
The first few songs drew some minor applause, then after about the third song, all of which sounded a lot alike, the applause stopped. He might have got $5 in tips while I was there, and that was early on. We were there about an hour and a half, the style never really changed, though the songs did - all where performed using the same strumming style. When he slaughtered Can't Help Falling In Love With You using a Caribbean style guitar playing, I had to leave - IT WAS REALLY BAD!
Today, I hung up a full color poster on the restaurant window, announcing that I would be there at 6 p.m. Monday evening. The day bar manager said to me "Wow! Are you the keyboard players from the City Marina? I said yes. She shook my hand, gave me a high five and said "It's my night off, but I will be here and bring my husband. I really love your music."
This will be my fist time here, but after what I've seen throughout the island for the past two weeks, I think I will pack the place and hold the crowd, which is what the management would like to see happen. I'll ask Carol to video some of the performance and if it turns out OK, I'll post it.
Cheers,
Gary
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PSR-S950, TC Helicon Harmony-M, Digitech VR, Samson Q7, Sennheiser E855, Custom Console, and lots of other silly stuff!
Registered: 12/08/02
Posts: 15576
Loc: Forest Hill, MD USA
Here's one of the local bands, a guy that is booked a couple times a week and everyone thinks he's got a heavy calendar. If you look at his schedule, most of the NH circuit guys I know book more in a single month than his band does all year. And, every song sounds damned near identical. In fact, he sounds a lot like the guy at the restaurant a few nights ago. I'll let you be the judge.
Cheers,
Gary
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PSR-S950, TC Helicon Harmony-M, Digitech VR, Samson Q7, Sennheiser E855, Custom Console, and lots of other silly stuff!
Registered: 06/25/99
Posts: 16735
Loc: Benton, LA, USA
Well, the positives are, the band is pretty tight, and fairly talented, balance is good. I'm not familiar with the song and google showed several songs named Stranded, but not this one, so maybe it is original. Down side is, there is not a big audience for unknown bands playing originals, outside of family and friends. I can't see people dancing to it, and I can't see it appealing to older people, who, one would think, probably comprise most of the audience in a retirement area such as South Florida. As Gary has suggested, they probably wouldn't hold an audience of this type for long.
Registered: 12/08/02
Posts: 15576
Loc: Forest Hill, MD USA
I was hoping to shoot some vids tonight at the Marina performance, but some dumbass (me) forgot to put new batteries in the camera. Monday night I'll try again.
Gary
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PSR-S950, TC Helicon Harmony-M, Digitech VR, Samson Q7, Sennheiser E855, Custom Console, and lots of other silly stuff!