Went out to see The County Line Jam Band (yes, that's "County Line" as in "I'm gonna walk you up and down....").
The wife & mother of the two guitarists told me that they have their own PA & soundman, but the venue insisted that they use the house system & "engineer". 19:00 load-in, 21:00 start time, clown shows up at 21:28 (in all fairness to him, his girlfriend came with him, and I can see why he was so late). Only had the vocals in FOH - and still couldn't make them heard.
Drummer was a basic hit-them-as-hard-as-you-can-sans-any-subtlety type. Bass & guitars, however, were quite good. As mentioned above, the guitars are father & son; mom said the lad (on lead) had played sax - 8th-grade jazz band when in 6th grade, etc. - and had no interest in the Dead. Then Dad told him that the 50th Anniversary shows were history, and he was going! On the way out, he said "Yeah, I'm gonna need a guitar." Didn't look old enough to be playing in a bar, but he was really starting to get the feel of it.
But the bummer of the night (besides the "soundman", and the gummy I recalled I had in the drawer turning out to be too old to do much) was the discovery that a loud electric band & my new hearing aids are not a good match. Curses, foiled again! That really harshes my mellow; I mean it was bad enough being forced to acknowledge that even in my delusional fantasy world I'll never be anyone's soundman again, but can't take a full set of a band?!?. As my dad has always said, "The whole world's turning to horse manure!"
Peter
