3 Nov – Phillips Performing Arts Center (Gainesville, FL)
w/ Indigo Girls
So, like I mentioned earlier, I babble between songs and I don’t really recall afterward what it was I said. So I have Robyn, who’s our tour manager for the trip, reminding me later. The quote from this show: “You paid enough money to be able to give yourselves a hand.” Thankfully they laughed.
It’s hard to recall a lot of this, so bear with me. We got in and I felt a little out of place. We ran into Amy pretty early on, though, and that helped somewhat. They soundchecked first and it was an odd thing to be around for. I met Emily somewhere in there and she said she really liked my CD. The hands at the venue brought the majority of our stuff onto the stage and I really didn’t know what to do while that was going on. They kept asking us what we needed and we all seemed a little confused about having to try to articulate what we are so used to just having to do ourselves all the time. We soundchecked and the sound was so good that after we ran through a song I had to have them turn down a lot of it, I’m so used to having to really push to be able to hear things in the monitors that the mix in these GOOD monitors sounded awful. We were planning on opening with an acoustic song that had a alternate tuning and I was talking to Amy about possibly asking their tech if she could tune my guitar back up during the songs after that. Instead, Amy lent me Emily’s guitar for that song. It was a very surreal experience.
We finished soundcheck and went back for the catering, which is one of the perks of this whole thing: free dinner on show nights. There wasn’t a whole lot of interaction between us and the Girls because they were really wrapped up in figuring out their set. We had been told that things would be a little crazy for the first night. Still, it was very good.
We went on at 8pm. Amy had said that they really only expected about a 50% house (in a 1700 seat venue), and it was certainly more than that. It seemed very full to me, though not sold out by any means. We started very quiet with “Hey, California” and the band kicked in at the end, and we got a big reaction. Everything past that point seemed to go over very well, so I suppose I can relax now about whether the crowds would be too thrilled about seeing a full band playing before an acoustic duo. We hadn’t soundchecked my acoustic so when we did the three acoustic songs in the middle it really sounded tinny, so that’s something I need to make sure we soundcheck from here on out. There were big cheers at the end of “Jeff Lynne” which always surprises me. Robyn said that Amy and Emily were standing off stage for the first three songs and dancing around, and Emily stayed for another two after that. The cover song went over really well, they cheered when we started it, and then again when we got to the other song we’ve stuck inside it. Near the end of the set I mentioned that the Indigo Girls would be out soon and they all cheered, and then I asked them to not be TOO excited, they’d hurt my feelings. More laughter. Thank god.
I went out to the lobby after the stage hands helped us (again) load our equipment off the stage. A couple of people asked for autographs. Then I went back in to watch their set. I won’t cover this in every post after this (I mean, this is all about ME, after all) but I have to say… it’s really an amazing thing watching them play solo. They nail EVERYTHING. More than that, watching the reaction of the crowd is unbelievable. They would cheer every small gesture in a song, and interaction between the Girls and the crowd was palpable. I would love to achieve that at some point, it was just amazing.
They came off stage after the set, before the encore, and Amy looked at me and said, “We’re gonna get you guys up to sing with us!” I must have looked sort of freaked out (not that I didn’t know that was something that they did, but because we hadn’t talked about it at all, and the thought of suddenly going up and trying to sing on a song I didn’t know was a bit much) because she threw in, “…tomorrow!”
We went back out to the lobby afterwards and a few more people asked for us to sign the CD. One group of people asked if they could take a picture with us. That was definitely a first, and it was truly bizarre. We sold about 19 CDs (I won’t keep telling everyone the totals, I just want a number to judge by later), much more than I had hoped we might. Then we went back to start loading out and another group of people asked for a photo and then as we started to walk through the doors they said, “Do you know where the Indigo Girls are?”
Robyn and I waited in the lobby after the place had emptied and they were counting the merch out. Chris came up and found a flyer for the show. He gave one to me and was grabbing more and I told him I only need one. It seemed sort of silly to have a bunch of them.
Then I stood there for a minute looking at my name on the flyer “Indigo Girls with special guest Paul Melançon” and it FINALLY hit me. I grabbed about 15 more.