Last year, we had a great time playing at a Halloween house party in Sandy. This year, Mark and Dean were out of town, and we weren't able to play the party as a band when they requested. Aaron and I offered DJ services for their party and they accepted. In addition to playing music, and lighting, we did karaoke as well.
Aaron dressed up as Link from the Zelda game, and I dressed up as a lion. (My wife and I were the Lion and the Lamb)
We had a good time. Although, lots of people were dancing and singing, this crowd reacted better when we played as a full live band. They want us back next year, but the whole band. We also met some people at the party who are looking for a band for upcoming parties.
We had such a success, we decided that we might do more DJ gigs when they present themselves.
Aaron with the whole sound and lighting rig
Me with the whole rig.
The backyard where we played last year
They had some delicious food, including this head made of prosciutto
Once upon a time, I used to play guitar and keyboard in the band. Then one day, I just got sick of hauling my keyboard and guitar rig to every rehearsal and gig. Our show at Wasatch Musician was the last time I played keys at a gig. It helped give a unique edge to some songs, by using guitars to fill in keyboard parts. Such as the beginning part of "Don't Stop Believing". We're pretty happy with how it turned out.
While we were satisfied with filling in the keyboard parts with two guitars, every once in a while we were reminiscent of how awesome keyboards were in certain parts. We decided against getting a full-time keyboardist in the band, because having more than 4 instruments in a rock band, clutters the sound.
Recently, we've been playing a lot of modern pop and 80's songs, and Mark has decided to step up and start playing keys. While Mark is a fantastic bassist, he identifies more as keyboardist. So I'll be doing bass, while Mark plays keyboard on some songs.
We had the opportunity to play at a wedding reception at the popular museum, The Leonardo. We were not only excited to be playing at one of the nicest venues in Salt Lake City, but the museum's Event Planner said that if she liked us, she'd suggest us for future weddings and events at the museum.
Preparation
Dean really stepped up for this gig. He's still getting up to speed, and he had to learn a lot of material for this gig, and he nailed it! While, we knew all the songs, it was essential to practice with Dean to be able to jive with him.
We learned a few new wedding appropriate songs. The bride and groom requested that we play "I Was Made For Loving You" by Tori Kelly feat. Ed Sheeran. We made an acoustic version of "All of Me" by John Legend for slow dancing. Also some other love themed dance songs, "Brass in Pocket" by Pretenders, "Lights" by Journey, "Sugar" by Maroon 5, and "Some Kind of Wonderful" by Grand Funk Railroad.
We got the idea of incorporating lights into our shows. Luckily t
here's dozens of videos on YouTube, and my friend Tyler gave me lots of advice and lent me some lights. I'll discuss more details about what we did for lighting in another blog post. But, the lighting was essential to our success.
The Show
Congrats to Kristy & Steve!
The Leonardo has a large event center on the top floor. We setup early in the afternoon, because the room was going to be used for the actual ceremony as well as the reception. Aaron's cousins, the Ohumukini Twins, offered to be our sound engineers and they did a fantastic job. We were given the entire auditorium as our "green room". A room were we could put our cases, and eat our delicious catered spaghetti meal.
The audience was very kind, lively, and receptive. It was one of the most energetic crowds we've performed to. It was awesome to see all the colorful lights swirling over all of them. One of the guests asked to sing a Backstreet Boys song. The whole crowd loved it!
The bride and groom afterward shook our hands and told us that they loved us.
Conclusion
It was an awesome show, we had fun, the guests had fun, and the event coordinator, Emily said that we definitely made her list for future performances. We also were able to get a 5-star review on GigSalad! Thanks to Aaron's mom, Kirsten for taking some awesome pictures! More of them here.