This past weekend, we had the privilege of bringing our music to the fully rigged stage in the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza. Click on the photo at right to see my little backstage chronology of the setup. We brought in a powerful video projector to try out our new video intros for each of two sets, which you can see a little pinch of the screen in the upper right of the 4th shot. Our friend Jim Hardiman sat in on percussion, and our other crony Julian came to operate the smoke machines. Not that our setup is ever simple, but this was a full-on production! And judging by the reviews we got, the extra effort paid off for the audience. Our next gig takes it to the other extreme, and will be an intimate acoustic concert at the Coffee Gallery Backstage in Alta Dena. It will be an interesting contrast to approach these songs we love in such a different way back-to-back. For me, playing on a huge stage with full volume instruments and thousands of people is like this intense energy vortex, where the power of the sound, the audience and the musicians on stage feed each other in a cumulative and collective swell, whereas an acoustic session is like having a one-on-one conversation with each person watching. Each experience is moving in a different way. It makes me wonder if musicians who get so famous that they can't do intimate shows end up missing the latter. Well, for now, we get to enjoy both, and I'll take 'em!
