Andy recently installed is "Strato-Blaster" into his Stratocaster and his guitar was souped-up and ready to roll. The thing reminded me of an idling Trans-Am at the start-line waiting for the light to turn green. Unfortunately, my initial mix of the night lacked the guitars in it leading me to a rare re-mix of the night. Therefore there are two videos of the night with 2 mixes, so take your poison. The audio is the remix.

The night started with a jam reminiscent of the Dark Star we played last week and we weakly transitioned into a Dancing in the Streets which had its moments, both good and bad. The early in the night Peter proved it's worth as well as the Strato-Blaster. The West LA to follow also highlighted Andy's guitar. The Cassidy jam was pretty good but the song in and of itself was a mess. I wasn't thrilled with the sound of my Telecaster throughout the night and it wasn't helped by the fact that I didn't adjust the gain on it on the mixer, so I had to unnaturally amplify it after the fact. Probably was part of the cause of the early bad mix?

There were lots of bigs songs early in the night including the Let It Grow and the Scarlet Fire. Giving Andy some room to let the Strato-Blaster get loosened up. The Takes A Lot To Laugh seemed like a throw away and the Greatest Story seemed like it was beyond and A-lister. A couple of Encores with Black Muddy River and Quinn ended Andy's Strato-Blaster inaugural night.

The second set found me with my thin feeling Telecaster and for some reason we played a bunch of covers. The Simple Twist of Fate found Kevin with a dead battery in his bass, out of nowhere, which he switched out and was rewady to finish the rest of the night. Back in the URRS was played to recognize the role Russia is currently playing in attacking Ukraine and time will tell if it is the beginning of WWIII. The US Blues had the same recognition to end the night. I played and sang a Comfortably Numb which was better than my typical and while the Ripple was better than typical I wish I had a second bite at that apple. I Can't explain was really good but I struggled with the Isn't It A Pity and The Hey Bulldog, chasing how to play them during the songs instead of playing the songs. It was a pretty good night all in all and most importantly, Kevin survived another week.

Freak Out!