I got to play band-rowdey for the night as I accompanied Glass Heroes for a show in Tempe, Arizona. Everyone met at The Club House musical venue and once we finished the greetings and a few drinks I helped A.D, my musical drum-master, assemble his kit and prepare for their performance. For them I am sure it was another "gig" but for me, it was a taste of the life of a performer and all that goes into making a live show a hit.
The cozy crowd of about 200 gathered around the elevated stage as some other acts came and went. The Heroes took the stage and exploded into a burst of musical energy, A.D's arms and elbows, moving in all directions, his eyes closed in concentration while Steve jumped from the drum riser with full-circle arm movements reminiscent of the "Who's" Pete Townsand.
Between songs, Steve and Keith would inter-act with the crowd with homorus tales and banter before bursting into another number. I was impressed to see the crowd signing along, doing their best air-guitar, dancing and clearly enjoying themselves. There's an energetic "give-and-take" during a show that takes place between performer and the fans which adds to the expierence of a live show.
The Heroes finished for the night with a very sincere and rowdey response from the crowd and I got my first live, behind-the-scenes expeirence of being in a rock band complete with hang-over.
The drum kit just got a little bigger. I added the Pintech insturments this week which brought me up to a full compliment of drums. The cymbals are not the best, being nothing more that plastic circles with trigger sensors mounted on them and the hi-hat is very tiny so those will be the next up-grades.
I combined the frame work of the Roland and Pintech into one structure which supports my pads nicely with very little vibration. Becasue I am using more pads than the processor will support, I have to use two. For this I run the main portion of the kit through the Roland module and my added pads are controled with a Yamaha RM-50 drum processor. It acts as a slave to the Roland module and is a great tool for getting the unusual sounds assigned to the other pads.
It certainly was like something from Oz when this brightly colored rainbow arched across the eastern sky of Phoenix. In the west, the clouds broke open, freeing the setting sun's energy and producing a panoramic view of colors that seemed to stretch from South Mountain to Camelback Mountain.
The rain clouds passed between the sun and rainbow to create a ribbon of dancing colors in crisp brilliance in contrast to the gray storm clouds. Approaching aircraft would break through the thick clouds, passing right through the rainbow as if coming out of a wrinkle in time to safely land in the present.
