So, yes, an update already.

Tonight brought back that awesome feeling of playing in a band. "Wild Nights" is nailed down. I just need to smooth out my ideas for my improvised solo. While I'm soling, I'm anticipating the turn around too soon. At least you can tell that from what I'm playing :-). We went through the solo part 5 times. I was happy with my last 2. The last one got messed up because I started getting "too into it". Lesson learned - keep the body language in check :-).

"Hard to Handle" was fun to play. It's got a really fun groove and the drummer had it down.

There's nothing like that feeling of getting caught up and lost in the groove! THAT is what it's about!

Level issues weren't a problem today, so that worked out. I thought I was behind on the songs, but it turns out I was ahead. I think the other members are catching onto the idea of incorporating the main ideas of the song rather than trying to capture every single nuance of the studio version. Any of that gets lost anyway and the audience isn't going to care.

A note to lead players - learn the chords and rhythm too. When it came time for me to take a solo in "Wild Night", the other guitar player was at a complete loss because he was totally focused on the lead parts. I ended up teaching "Hard to Handle" to everybody because they were concentrating on the lead parts only.

So, if you only know the lead parts, you may find yourself caught out. You should also know what it is that you are playing over :-).

The facility plans on recording video and posting it on their website. Assuming I don't completely embarrass myself, I'll post a link here once it's up. We've got a couple of months before we get there...

Until next week...