Back from my tour! 🤘🏻
Hey I'm back from my tour!
I came back on Tuesday at 4 am! Since then, I had to get back to my students, back up to speed with the rest, and also rest a little.^^
Just to remind you: I was called to play lead guitar with a duo of rock fusion called Les Pépé Ly. I had a lot of fun and we toured in a very beautiful region of France called the Alps (mountains).
We played three shows, the last two at the same bar, but for the last evening we were to entertain German tourists with a jam session with other musicians. It's really not something I'm used to (I'm not a great improviser), but it was a lot of fun, and I made a bunch of new friends!
Besides, the people were so adorable and we were welcomed in the best conditions: I had my own bedroom, we had unlimited drinks and ice cream (yes, yes 😋 ^^) and for the last day, the owner of the bar offered us an afternoon of rafting on the mountain river! It was magical! Kind of a little vacation really!
The whole thing was really Rock'n Roll though. This is the project of a guy I've known for a few years (I recorded Prequel in his studio), and he's a dear friend but he's really crazy... His mind goes in several directions at once so you have to be extremely adaptable when working with him because it gets really messy quickly!^^
As an example, I had barely more than a week to learn over twenty tracks (you can check out the set list with my patch notes in the pics) and here's how it went:
I got about ten tracks to transcribe from YouTube videos, but in the end they don't play them this way live...
I got to listen to the other tracks the only time we rehearsed, three days before departure. To make the most out of it, I recorded everything I could on my phone, took notes and transcribed the grids on sheets of paper.
And finally, there was still a bunch of tracks I hadn't heard nor practiced, so the guy gave me the grids and I took some notes; but he forgot to tell me about two tracks before we went to our first gig, so I transcribed the grids on the road and recorded him singing the themes on my phone. I learned both tracks in the trucks in my head and on my guitar in the first bar before we went on stage... 😅
As strange as it sounds, I was not stressed one bit. I knew I was doing my best and that things would simply be as they would.
And I must say that even though everything wasn't perfect, I really surprised myself by being so adaptable: learning so many tracks and improvise in contexts that I'm really not used to made me a better musician and I'm proud of what I did. It was quite a challenge!
I will share videos as soon as I can; and maybe even make one of my own to share more in depth details about this whole experience.
But for now, I will pour myself a cold drink and watch Downton Abbey. 😁
Take care! Talk to you soon my friend! 🤘🏻
P.S.Consider joining me on Patreon to get exclusive updates and be the first to know about these kind of events! I will focus more and more on this platform to make it my closest community, and I would be thrilled to see you there!