rock'n'rill

Things coming together

Left to right: Jan, Aggi, Felix, Mac, Chris. photo by Winfried Zang

Whew, last week’s sure been busy – but it’s also been very rewarding.

A long rehearsal on Wednesday, gigs on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and a recording session with Robert Oberbeck on Saturday afternoon.

A short recap:
On Thursday we were at Beavers, one of my favorite venues. Opening for us were Lick And A Promise as an acoustic trio. I’ve known these guys now for a little over half a year and I think they’re as good a rock’n’roll band as they come.
After their half-hour set we took to the stage with Jan Reinelt on keyboards. This was Jan’s second gig with us after joining us at das boot in November. We had some new songs in the set we were gonna play for only the first or second time and with Jan on piano & organ we were also able to bring back some older songs we hadn’t gotten around to learning yet or that – truth be told – simply sound better with a piano in the mix (Future Memory, Out Of The Cold, Sarah Stein).
The first set went over very well (I sold a ton of CDs during the break) and the second set came together even better. Felt good.
For the encore we asked LNAP back on stage and a fun mixture of the Troublemakers and Lick performed their hit “Come Together In The Morning” together. Memorable. If you were there, you know what I mean :-)

On Friday we were at Glattbacher Mühle in Glattbach near Aschaffenburg. Our second time there and again the second double header with local heroes Magic Ed Combo. Magic Ed being Marcus “Ed” Staab who taught me many things about the blues and played and recorded with me between ca. 1999 and 2002. Ed, Fleyb & Detlef are a real tight, groovy combo and we enjoyed listening to them.
It was past ten p.m. when we hit the stage. Sound was a little difficult for us as a five-piece on this slightly cavernous stage. We were joined on a few songs by fiddler George Bähr from Aschaffenburg. George will play on our new record and join us in Heilbronn on March 8 and some more gigs this year. He’s a pro and sounded great.
We sold a bunch of CDs, received lots of compliments and a great newspaper review (here) for our gig but I guess we all felt we could’ve had a little more fun and consequently sounded a little better if we had been able to hear ourselves properly. Like when I looked over at Jan, I could see him sitting there with his hands moving so I assume he was playing – I just couldn’t hear him.
Oh well.

Onward on Saturday. I would not have minded sleeping in but my good friend Robert Oberbeck was coming to town to not only open our show but also to record backing vocals for a bunch of songs on the new record. We were off to a slow start in the studio until Troublemakers drummer Aggi came by. He invigorated us with his great performance of backing vocals on “Free To Fly”. Robert then got another two songs done before we headed to Bronnbachkeller for our gig. We got there a little after 6 p.m. with doors to open at 7.30 p.m.
I found out there had not only been a change in the club’s booking manager but in pretty much everything. Pretty much everything except for selling drinks was up to us. Wish I’d known about this sooner. So there was an hour of setting up tables, carrying chairs, wrecking cars in order to pick up some mic stands and general mayhem (which, once again, did not include a soundcheck) before the room started filling up to the very last seat right around 7.30.
Robert started at 8 sharp, playing a fantastic set with an unexpected cover of Bob Seger’s “Against The Wind” as my personal highlight. He really is a wonderful performer, great singer, great musician and great guy.
And it sure felt like he was a tough act to follow, especially considering that due to the car wrecks and mayhem we hadn’t had a chance to run through a single song together. So we figured we’d start out with just Felix (on guitar) & me to see how that sounded and build it from there. We opened with My Rocket Ship which is going to be the next album’s title track, followed by For The Stars. Those felt pretty good so we navigated through the first set picking up steam and realizing that things were rolling along just fine. The audience was right there with us making us feel good. The first set ended with Sarah Stein. My best friend Chris, who is usually a tough critic to win over, told me it was “probably the best version” of the song he’d ever heard.
The second set followed the set list (mostly) because we found it had worked very well at Beavers. Some country songs, then some rockers, ending with Not Yet Shipwrecked, another unearthed track we hadn’t played in a while.
And a rousing finale with Robert joining us on “Out Of The Cold”.
And there it was: a beautiful night in my hometown, a wonderful audience and a great gig. And, yes, after these three gigs, Jan is now a bona fide Troublemaker. He knows now how we roll, that we like to stretch some outros or bring it down mid-song. That all felt real organic by Saturday night. I hope he’ll be able to join us on many more gigs!

And I hope you’ll be coming out to see the Troublemakers soon. We’re a good little band :-)

28 February 2012 ·