In Stereo played an excellent live gig at the Canyon Inn in Salt Lake City, Utah the weekend of April 3-4, 2009. We really had a lot of fun this past weekend even though the weekend started with an extreme low point for In Stereo. We had practiced on Wednesday night and Ted (our drummer) seemed to be doing fine and we got some excellent new songs ready to go. So when I got a call about midday on Thursday from Ted to tell me he was in the hospital with a severely infected ankle it was a complete surprise. Ted had his ankle's fused about a year ago and the screws in the bones had started to come out and caused bleeding inside his ankle, which in turn became infected. Needless to say, he would be unable to make our scheduled gig. Luckily, we were able to secure the drumming services of Frank Lee who is the drummer for Shufflin' Noah and also the original drummer for In Stereo before he left the band and Ted took over the drumming. It turned out to be really fun for all of us to have Frank come and drum although our thoughts were with Ted all weekend.
On Friday night we got all set up to play and all the equipment was working fine which is really the first hurdle at any gig. It's amazing how quickly equipment problems can kill your show. We were all jittery with excitement and nerves as we quickly decided what we were going to play before taking the stage. We hadn't had a chance to practice with Frank and he hadn't played with In Stereo for a couple years so we were all winging it. In Stereo uses a computer sequencer on about 25% of our songs and it's up to the drummer to stay with the click track to keep the band together. It's extremely challenging and the drummer has to be very disciplined and focused to be able to pull this off. Luckily, Frank has had experience working with sequences and he was able to keep it together on every sequenced song we did. Heidi Nedreberg was also there on Friday night with a good contingent of friends and we had her come up and join the band on several songs. She sang extremely well and only continues to improve as a live singer. She got some huge cheers from the audience. The audience was lively and seemed to really enjoy the show all night long. We had a lot of extra energy because of the extra stress of playing with a new drummer. It really turned out to be a lot of fun and the night went off without a hitch. We really missed Ted because we are so familiar with his style. We know where his drum breaks are so we're able to predict the songs from his drumming. Frank did a fantastic job and it was challenging and fun to try to stay tight and keep the music rocking. Plus, he's got some great fills with a really hard, rocking style. Frank sang lead on AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long" and "Dirty Deeds" which both filled the floor. Heidi totally rocked on Journey's "Separate Ways" which got a lot of screams from the audience! It was a great night for the band and hopefully for everyone in the club. (continued below...)
Saturday night, things went even better because we had all the experience of Friday night to draw on. We'd played better overall as we became more familiar with the way our styles were fitting together. We had a bunch of rowdy girls in the audience that were really having a good time. Saturday night, Kyle "Bill" Johnson sang Journey's "Separate Ways" and the audience ate it up! It was like a rock concert instead of a dance club because everyone was facing the stage and screaming like crazy while we played. It's a great feeling when the audience is so into what you're doing up there onstage. Saturday it seemed like every song we played just rocked! The 2nd night of two-night gigs are always tough to keep the energy flowing for the whole 4-hour show and if you lose your energy onstage the audience can feel it too. But we really kept it from start to finish and we finished the night strong being called back for 2 encores. The audience kept yelling for more Journey so we played "Separate Ways" again and they went even crazier the 2nd time. All in all it was an excellent night and the entire weekend went well onstage.
Word on Ted is that he will get better and hopefully he'll be back behind the drumset soon. Watch the In Stereo Blog for updates on Ted's progress and we'll try to keep the news current. Thanks to Frank for filling in for Ted, you rock man!! And thanks to all our family, friends and fans that came out to see us play. As always, it's seeing people we know that makes the gigs a lot more fun for us.
Labels: canyon inn, gig, in stereo
