That morning I broke down my guitar rig, loaded it into my trusty 2000 VW bug (and marveled at the fact that not only did it hold the pedalboard, Digital Les Paul, L1 setup with two bass bins, and all my cables, but could hold another L1 if I so desired!), and drove to the gig.
With the tight timing of Brian not getting back from L.A. until that morning – he’d been appearing with Public Enemy on the Jimmy Kimmel show – it was a bit of a nail-biter given that we were scheduled to go on at 2 PM. I basically had my stuff set up and ready to go, while getting periodic reports from Brian on his progress via cell phone.
Brian plays Slingerland drums, but as he was late getting in there wasn’t time to get his drums and set them up. He was pretty bummed, but luckily, the band that was going on after us had their drums set up, so Brian was able to use those. Here’s a picture of Brian doing his thing.
Note the Alesis ControlPad is set up on top of the floor tom to his left. Below the tom, toward the bottom right, you can see his Mac laptop that played back the one sample we used. We programmed the controller so that no matter which pad he hit, it played that sample.
We had to do an ultra-fast sound check, as we were running late…it was basically set up and go. Here’s a picture of both of us during soundcheck. I really liked my compact setup. Note the guitar neck is parallel to the L1; I was testing out the controlled feedback.
As to the concert, well, what can I say? It was a total blast!! My 12-year-old daughter brought a camcorder, and took some videos. The wind noise was a real problem, but I was able to salvage some of the audio.
And here are some more pictures…
This gives a really good shot of the Digital Les Paul. You may be able to see I’m using a thumbpick, which is the secret to being able to get the bass lines pulled out separately…my fingers play chords. During leads, though, the bass strings become more like a pedal point as the pick is playing the leads, not articulating bass parts. And you gotta love that blue Les Paul…it’s a real attention-getter on stage, as it’s so iconic yet doesn’t look like any Les Paul you’ve seen before.
I didn’t realize we were being projected on a big screen until a friend gave us a couple of pictures. Here’s another one…
Once again, you can really see how the Digital Les Paul stands out. Here’s the last picture…
As a first gig, it was quite an experience. We saw it mostly as a “proof of concept,” as we’d never played in public before as EV2. But what really made it worthwhile was when we got off stage, and two guitar players in bands slated to play later in the festival came up to me. One of them said “That was the most awesome guitar sound I’ve ever heard in my life!” while the other nodded in assent. I explained a little about what I was doing…and he wasn’t the only one to comment on how huge we sounded. It was fun. It was cool, and it’s the first of many gigs to come, I hope…