Hey Razzelmacher -
Thanks so much for your kind words on the video!! Part of the reason I post these is to try to inspire others on their journey.
What you see me stomping on is a guitar processor - a Zoom G5. The reason I brought it was I was having problems with my solos being heard so I needed a way to boost my volume during my solos. There were also times while playing some rhythm parts that I was too low, so I hit the boost. Watching, I think there were times I seemed to be too focused on my pedal board. I'm not sure what effects I'll eventually use or need, so I'm using this in the meantime to try different things out.
I also used it for the delay effect at the beginning of China Grove, though I didn't have the delay time set correctly.
Great questions!! Mainly the cues are taken from the singer. If he comes in early on a verse, or extends a chorus, we just follow him along. That happened during Start Me Up, though even there we got out of sync with the singer. For endings, we'll take an initial cue from the singer and then our drummer. For endings, we discuss that ahead of time.
The key thing is to just keep playing through, not matter how bad it gets. This video has a perfect example of that during "Your Momma Don't Dance". Our singer hadn't practiced that song with us much and for some reason I seemed to be the only one that was comfortable with the song form. At the start of my solo, it almost came to a complete halt, but I kept going and everybody followed me at that point. It wasn't the most elegant recovery, but it was certainly far better than just stopping.
With this example, the singer got totally lost and rather than follow him, I had to "take the lead" and everybody followed me. So, if you know your part, keep playing through even if EVERYBODY else stops. They will then pick up with you and you move on.
Somewhere during this performance, our drummer dropped a stick! You just keep playing.
The more you rehearse, this will come naturally as long as you adopt the "no stopping until the end of the song" philosophy during your rehearsals.
What's the name of your band? What songs are you playing?
