Live Performance II (John Adams)

As I indicated in my last "musing," the sheer amount of variables involved with live-music make it highly likely that from time to time, strange things will happen at performances. One of the main ways where this shows itself is in the area of equipment. I suppose the problem with technology is that we expect it to work all of the time.

I suppose that even an acapella vocal group would not be immune to the perils of fallible equipment, as any singer who has had to sing through a cold (or worse) can testify. Adding musical instruments and even amplifiers and P.A. systems to the equation greatly increases the potential for disaster. This was impressed upon me from my earliest days as a bassist. My first fond memories are not that first band I got to play with, or that first solo-award at a contest. No. It was faulty equipment that looms large in my mind. I had been playing acoustic bass for about six months (8th grade) when I got my first electric bass. I scraped and saved until I could afford the Hoffner "beatle" bass that they had at a local used instrument/pawn shop. I brought it home with the great excitement; no problem that I didn't have an amp for it yet. I had a bass guitar! I might actually be able to find a way to be cool. I played it vigorously for several hours and all of a sudden a terrible "snap" reverberated through the den. The "A" string broke, and so did my certainty of coolness.

The next event I recall was playing that electric bass at my first musical theater (in the "pit orchestra"). We were all seated in the pit, tuned up and ready to play. Right before it started, as the house lights blacked out my cord started crackling like I was making popcorn. My first encounter with the demon of "short-circuits!" The director gave me a horrified look and said to quickly dash to the band room and get another one. I crept out under cover of darkness, but right as I stepped back into the aisle that lead to the pit, for some reason, the house lights came back on. The whole audience turned and looked at me, thinking it to be the first entrance of an actor. Now I can't guarantee that I am always this quick on my feet, but in a flash I had a brilliant idea (for an 8th grader). I picked up that new guitar-cord by both ends and proceeded to jump-rope with it all the way the pit. My memory goes blank after that.

Sometimes there is fine line between genius and insanity. I remember one performance I was playing with a jazz combo on a jazz festival several years ago. The pianist in the group was a consistently fine player, but on the final number of our set he brought the house down with his fiery solo. His solo made seamless transitions from his normally intricate lines, to more bombastic rhythmic ideas, building to a final flurry of crashes on the keyboard using his entire forearm. He concluded his final crash of notes by standing to his feet with a fire in his eyes and a winded look. The audience then responded by jumping to its feet as well. Later when we were complimenting him on the solo he said, "I don't know what you're talking about; I was just mad at the piano!"

And finally, sometimes it's just not your day. I took my nice Juzek string bass to a gig one rainy night. I noticed right away that it was harder than usual to play. Now those that play string instruments know that high humidity can effect an instrument, but this particular night was ridiculous. I am not one to be easily defeated in this area but I eventually gave up and had to finish the set on my electric bass. Well my self-confidence was restored somewhat when I took a closer look at the bass, and found that the neck of the bass had broken off of the back and the string tension was pulling the neck forward. I bagged it up and took it into the repairman the next day. He gave me another bass of mine that he had been working on to use for the next day or so while he fixed the Juzek. That second night I went back to the same club and started into the gig. On the last exciting tune of the first set, in the middle of a solo the cable that wraps from the tail-piece around the end-pin broke (they NEVER do!) and the entire bass kind of exploded in my hands; the end-pin fell out, the strings collapsed, the bridge and sound-post fell down, and right as the commotion on the stage was dying down I heard one the of the classic understatements of all time: from clear across the room we heard the bartender exclaim, "Bummer dude!" Yeah, it was.

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