Yesterday was a full day for me, with a return to Stick playing for the first time in several weeks. Since I haven’t been practicing much, I was half-expecting there to be some disastrous moments on stage. Although my set at Marina Hop in the early afternoon was far from smooth, I think it could have been much worse, all things considered. (OK, “it could have been a lot worse” is not a very productive way of self-analyzing a performance. I should probably stop doing that before it develops into a nasty habit.)

There were a few anxious moments when I couldn’t get my MacRack to start up. I thought I was having a problem with the computer, and that maybe I had bumped it hard enough during transit to damage the hard drive. On the verge of panicing, thinking that I would have to completely bypass all effects for the set, I finally realized that the problem was with my 828mkII interface, rather than the computer. I just needed to flip the power switch off and back on again to reset it, and then everything worked fine. Once I got into the performance, I had trouble getting my loops going, and eventually abandoned them. I need to spend a lot more time practicing with SooperLooper and my foot controls, working on my timing between hands and feet.

On top of everything else, I’ve just never really been able to enjoy outdoor performances (with a few notable exceptions). Unless the PA equipment and operator are exceptionally good, the sound from the monitors often sounds very “thin”, making it hard for me to get into my performance. Marina Hop was like that for me on Sunday, and my entire set felt very lackluster. However, My Funny Valentine came out quite nice, I felt. Nobody was more suprised by this than me, since I had moth-balled this tune several months back because I could never get it to come out right in performance. I love the song, but it was always a thorn in my side when it came to playing it in front of an audience.

So, when I did my solo set at Rendezvous last night, I decided to start off with My Funny Valentine. Now, I’m upset with myself that I didn’t take the time to record my performance, because I think that may have been my best rendition of the tune in front of an audience. I followed that tune with some minor looping over which I improvised for a while, and then segued into Lift Off. I had much better success with my loops this time, although poor monitoring made it difficult for me to hear the looping rhythms as I played through Lift Off, and I eventually had to mute the loops as I felt that I had drifted away from the looped tempo. I like this idea of using loops as rhythm and texture in Lift Off, and I’m going to work on getting it to work more smoothly. I finished my set with A Pleasant Fiction, a ballad that I like a lot. Overall, I felt it was a strong performance; the audience was very receptive and supportive, and I received several very nice compliments. In particular, Tony mentioned that he enjoyed My Funny Valentine.

The show at Rendezvous was a charity event to support GetHiroshima in their defense against a lawsuit. The last I heard, 63,000 yen had been collected from the crowd that gathered. Well done, everyone!