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This past weekend was our church’s ‘weekend away’, billed as a weekend of rest, re-creation and renewal. I dunno about the ‘rest’ part, but I’m not complaining. Getting up this morning was hard :D
Our guest speaker was the Rt. Rev Graham Dow, who had a lot of interesting, often thought-provoking and challenging things to say - I don’t think any of us finished the weekend unchanged, or at the very least with new thoughts and even actions to take away, digest and use.
I spent the start of every session behind a drum kit in the worship band - folks from church won’t be surprised by this, but others might. I’m not the best drummer in the world, or necessarily even the best one in church, but (with a lot of help from on high) I don’t do so badly - there were a few moments of knowing what I /wanted/ to play and just having to trust that the ability would match. And (perhaps not surprisingly) those were some of the best... getting several folks who I wouldn’t expect it of clapping and literally dancing in the aisles. Very fun worship band - bass (Anne), drums, guitars, cello, clarinet, piano and trumpet (Alan D, producing some of the most spine-tingling trumpet lines) - we’re seriously thinking about doing more with it. I have this vision of a worship band with a feel like the Springsteen Sessions Band - brass section, lots of guitar, piano, fiddle, Hammond, harmonies...
We (as in Fleetfoot Mike) were also asked to play for the Saturday evening ‘fun’ night. I did have a couple of ‘are you /sure/? the Mac are not exactly what you might call a Christian bunch’ conversations with the organisers, but they were keen, so..
It went /really/ well: the room acoustic was fantastic, the mix (thanks to Robert G-S from church, who flew the whole thing by the seat of his pants) was as good as the best that the wonderful Rich has done for us - everything was clear as a bell. From the moment I hit the opening to ’The Chain’ it just felt balanced and easy to work within. And everyone seemed to really enjoy it (from the vast number of comments we got), and register that we were having an absolute ball up there (which I’m sure always translates to the audience doing the same, and was also true of the worship band). And the venue had a real grand piano (which Tony from the worship band wants to bring home) which we moved to be a part of Anne’s keys rig, so she could use it for Silver Springs, Don’t Stop and Songbird.
Did seem to spend a lot of the /rest/ of the time moving and re-arranging kit - we had two PAs, one from the venue for the worship band and the speakers, and one for FFM, and not quite enough mics, as well as a bass and guitar rig being shared between the two. As a result, am a touch stiff this mornning. Andy L (the worship band guitarist) does seem to have fallen in love with my Tipton Slasher amp, though - he had one of those ‘hit power chord: grin like idiot: hit power chord again’ moments.
In other news: I have broadband again (although it’s still not exactly right). Full story once we get the last details knocked out.
Our guest speaker was the Rt. Rev Graham Dow, who had a lot of interesting, often thought-provoking and challenging things to say - I don’t think any of us finished the weekend unchanged, or at the very least with new thoughts and even actions to take away, digest and use.
I spent the start of every session behind a drum kit in the worship band - folks from church won’t be surprised by this, but others might. I’m not the best drummer in the world, or necessarily even the best one in church, but (with a lot of help from on high) I don’t do so badly - there were a few moments of knowing what I /wanted/ to play and just having to trust that the ability would match. And (perhaps not surprisingly) those were some of the best... getting several folks who I wouldn’t expect it of clapping and literally dancing in the aisles. Very fun worship band - bass (Anne), drums, guitars, cello, clarinet, piano and trumpet (Alan D, producing some of the most spine-tingling trumpet lines) - we’re seriously thinking about doing more with it. I have this vision of a worship band with a feel like the Springsteen Sessions Band - brass section, lots of guitar, piano, fiddle, Hammond, harmonies...
We (as in Fleetfoot Mike) were also asked to play for the Saturday evening ‘fun’ night. I did have a couple of ‘are you /sure/? the Mac are not exactly what you might call a Christian bunch’ conversations with the organisers, but they were keen, so..
It went /really/ well: the room acoustic was fantastic, the mix (thanks to Robert G-S from church, who flew the whole thing by the seat of his pants) was as good as the best that the wonderful Rich has done for us - everything was clear as a bell. From the moment I hit the opening to ’The Chain’ it just felt balanced and easy to work within. And everyone seemed to really enjoy it (from the vast number of comments we got), and register that we were having an absolute ball up there (which I’m sure always translates to the audience doing the same, and was also true of the worship band). And the venue had a real grand piano (which Tony from the worship band wants to bring home) which we moved to be a part of Anne’s keys rig, so she could use it for Silver Springs, Don’t Stop and Songbird.
Did seem to spend a lot of the /rest/ of the time moving and re-arranging kit - we had two PAs, one from the venue for the worship band and the speakers, and one for FFM, and not quite enough mics, as well as a bass and guitar rig being shared between the two. As a result, am a touch stiff this mornning. Andy L (the worship band guitarist) does seem to have fallen in love with my Tipton Slasher amp, though - he had one of those ‘hit power chord: grin like idiot: hit power chord again’ moments.
In other news: I have broadband again (although it’s still not exactly right). Full story once we get the last details knocked out.
