Break over. I stood up from sitting atop Mr. Ape Head. We looked at the beginning of the proposed second set. “We should change the order of these songs. Otherwise, we have a couple of ‘sing-along-types’ back-to-back.” Motioning to the list, Don said, “Yeah, why don’t we put Surf Beat here?”
Mr. Moto was first in the second set. I kept thinking, “Don’t speed up. Don’t speed up.” That helped some. The intro did not seem to get away from the pace set in the first two bars. A couple of ragged spots followed including one of those “where am I now” moments. Back on time. Back into the song. End. Cha, cha, cha.
Out of the Vortex was next. Don started. Glenn and I came in. The first couple of bars after the intro were rough. But soon we were playing together. Lead and bass were in sync. We finished together.
“That was pretty good for having not played it for awhile.”
“What do you mean awhile? We last played that when we recorded it, and that was a year ago.” In some ways, the recording sessions seem a long time ago. In others, they feel like they were just a few months ago.
After Runaway, we took on Goldfinger. I played. Don looked at the music. We just could not get into the same stanza at the same time. Glenn tried to help us by keeping time on the high hat. Finally, Don put the music on the bass drum. I walked over to look. Crash! The short cord -- remember the short cord? -- pulled the reverb unit over. Oops, going farther than I originally thought.
Don moved the music closer to my short tether. As we looked at the music, we realized that the spacing of the song required that I wait for Don to fill some space. We played it again. Better. Again. Better. Wait for Don. Better. Again. Wait for Don. Better.
Now for the transition from Goldfinger to Secret Agent Man -- a semi-spy medley. How about this? Bass or no bass? More collaboration. Glenn on the high hat. “Shouldn’t we go through this twice like we do in other places?” “That makes sense.”
“Let’s put them together . . . . From the beginning.” We played. Goldfinger . . . transition . . . Secret Agent Man. Again. “Damn, I missed that last chord.” Again.
“Hey, that sounds pretty good for the first time that we have taken it on.” Wasn’t that the same thing that we said about our Last Date/Sleepwalk medley?
We had been working hard and were more than two hours into band practice. Time had flown by. The process had taken energy and concentration while being fun. “Let’s play our closing song.” Rawhide and Jack the Ripper. That took the last bit of energy that I had for music. What a productive practice!
As we drove home, Glenn offered, “We sounded really good.” I thought, “This night was well worth the time and the drive. Fun. A respite from a very demanding week. Tomorrow morning, my day job will require every bit of energy that I can muster.”