lowquality.net

Wednesday night I played a show at Scotty Quixx with my new friends Geoff and Rianna. We had a pretty awesome time and I ran into a few familiar faces. We didn’t have a drummer, we rehearsed for only a couple of nights before the show and we still sounded pretty solid in my opinion (I did get lost in the bridge of “Since I’ve Been Loving You” but these things happen).

Playing a gig without a drummer is something you see upright bassists do much more often for some reason and almost never seems to happen with the bass guitar. I know that I’ve done it before with people but this was the first time I’d taken the role so seriously. Geoff and I were struggling at rehearsals to decide what the best way to approach playing drummerless would be. Should we be playing more to fill the absence of drums? Or, should we be playing less to mimic the supporting role of the drums? At different times it seemed like either solution could be the right one, but neither seemed to always be the answer…

…Until we got on stage. Then everything seemed to just lock in place. It was probably one of the better shows I’ve played in a long time and it was 5 songs and we were pretty poorly rehearsed. It’s nice to feel like you are coasting by on sheer skill (no, really, I mean that).

As a bass player, you’ve got to put a feather in your cap when you play a gig without a drummer and you can still see people in the audience moving to the music (even if its just a sway or a little head bob). It’s a feeling of accomplishment I didn’t expect.