Ego and the Pillar

At the first JW performance, I found myself receiving a reminder of where I stand in the group.  Most musicians don't pay much attention to bass players, and even fewer audience members do, but try listening to a band without one.  It's an old argument I won't rehash here.  I haven't historically stayed long in bands that just wanted a bass player to fill a certain sonic space and not do much else.  The way I see it, any bassist could fill that role in one of those bands, and I'm not interested in playing with musicians who aren't capable of understanding what the bass player really brings to the table.  I've usually contributed additionally in some way as well, whether it was vocally, in terms of additional equipment, or in terms of band leadership.

JW has most of that territory well covered, which is a Good Thing as a general rule, and they do recognize the value of the bassist.  Andy has spent most of his time in bands as one, and everybody has made it known from time to time that they're glad to have me in the group.  Even though I don't sing any lead with this band, I saw myself as one of the vocal contributors as well as an instrumentalist who contributes as much as anyone else.  It might not seem like much to sing backing parts, but there's a huge difference between a band with one good lead singer and a couple of decent back-ups and a band that simply has one good lead singer.  I've also traditionally been one of the more visual performers in any band I've been with.

So the layout of the stage happened to include a pillar at an inconvenient spot.  Not the first time I've run into that.  Long story short, I found myself placed mostly behind the pillar, virtually invisible to half the audience.  Yes, it just happened to be where I usually am in the standard set-up, but if it had happened to be the lead singer or lead guitarist in that position, I'm sure we would have shifted the set-up somehow.

I was amused at my own mildly-annoyed gut reaction to this.  My ego was bruised, even though I didn't put up much of an argument, because there was no better way to position ourselves on that stage.  My wireless rig allowed me to make myself more visible if I really wanted to be.  It was more about seeing clearly how the others in the band see me, which is as a secondary, supporting performer.  True enough, that's what I am, but being stuck behind a pillar didn't make me feel any better about that.  I'll have to deal with it, because we hope to play there in the future.

So once again, I consider my role in this band, and decide that this is where I want to be.  We sound good collectively, and if my role appears small to the public, so be it.  It matters a good deal less now that it would have when I was twenty, or even thirty.  And yet the fact that it bothered me at all tells me that I still have some ego to deal with, and that that is part of what I'm doing playing in public again.

The visual presentation is another aspect of this band that we'll have to work out over time.  Everybody likes to move around on stage, which is fantastic!  We just need to find a way to make all of those moving parts into one coherent whole.