JW - Third Show at the Horseshoe Pub

Very slick on the set-up this time, done very early and plenty of time to sound check.  Good mix and good monitors before we got started.

The place was relatively empty before we started, which concerned me.  There was some minor league adverse weather (serious fog in the general area).  It shouldn't have kept most people home, but probably wasn't helping us.  The crowd picked up during the first set, though.  We need to start drawing some people beyond our own friends/family, and that's a slow process.  Overall draw was okay, but not impressive.

I had some technical problems, as my wireless rig noisily gave up the ghost during the second set, forcing me to adjust my sound on the fly and limit my movement.  We had a serious case of creeping volume, to the point where I couldn't hear the lead vocals at all, making harmonies (and keeping track of where we were in the song) a struggle at best.  Definitely not my finest set as a member of this band.  On the other hand, Keith prefers to play at high volume and was very happy with that set.  He also wore light-up devil horns for "Dirty Deeds", which was fun.

We brought the volume down slightly for the third and fourth sets, and I managed to dial in a good sound on the Rick, so I stuck with it most of the rest of the way and felt I redeemed myself to some degree during those sets.  Still too damn loud to really function vocally, though.

Bill's voice sounded ragged to me again, with jet lag (he'd just come back from LA) and the high volume pushing him to his limit.  We'll see how it comes out on the recordings.  Singing lead on virtually every song for four sets would be challenging for almost any singer, and those other factors didn't help.  He always seems to be burning the candle at both ends, which concerns me.

Everybody else seemed happier with our performance than I was.  I didn't think it was terrible, but I know we can be so much better than this.  The new songs didn't go well, except for "The Twist" and possibly "The Boys are Back in Town".  Overall, I think it was better than the first show, but not as good as the second.  We're scheduled to be back in February, and I hope we can do better then.