I take for granted that i have all this audio equipment, and microphone stands, and mixers, and, well, all the stuff i’ve accumulated over years of supplying equipment for Blogathon, Lyndzapalooza, and the Treblemakers. I take it for granted up until it’s the end of Lyndzapalooza and people are marvelling at all the equipment i have to pack or complimenting me on a job well done. I never feel like either is true, but i suppose the beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Today was a very awesome Lyndzapalooza, that classic all-day musical party and barbecue -in honor of our one and only Lindsay- that has supplanted Blogathon as my major yearly holiday.
It truly is a holiday. I look forward to it all year, i get excited to the point of distraction when it’s upcoming, and i’m drained as soon as it’s over. And it’s not even a holiday about me! You could argue that it’s about me because i get up on stage and perform, but with every year that passes that becomes increasingly more incidental. Hell, today i ditched half of a meticulously planned setlist for Kelly Clarkson covers and bringing random friends onstage to sing with me. I’m not picky.
My true role at Lyndzapalooza is to be completely and totally unobtrusive – i shouldn’t get in the way of bands when setting up their sound, and when i’m playing for someone it should be all about them and not at all about me. That way, if i do eventually take the stage myself, i can be enjoyed or ignored as my own phenomenon rather than as “the sound guy we have to listen to.”
We sure have come a long way from the first year of scrounged equipment scattered across the yard of an abandoned house and microphones affixed to broomsticks. I’m happy to say that, despite a handful of desperately grumpy moments during the day, i left this ‘palooza stress-free and without regret. I played as good as i can play, i mixed as well as i can mix, and i still somehow managed to drink and socialize while i was doing it.
Mayyybe i need more of a sound reinforcement committee next year, though. Especially if we’re going to have it on a farm or a mountain rather than in Dante’s back yard.
[…] A year ago this week I had just finished my yearly engagement at Lyndzapalooza, and otherwise hadn’t played anywhere other than the Shubin X-Mas Revue since… well, since the last Lyndzapalooza. However, I had also just written and demoed two new songs that seemed not to suck, and I was arranging for and singing in an a cappella group (the latter for the first time ever). […]