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Day Two Hundred Sixty Eight (Year Four)


From the Dickey Betts & Great Southern gig tonight at The Mississippi Moon Bar

It was nice to step out tonight and catch a live show.  For one thing, seeing someone live always gets me fired up to get back into the studio and keep working to get better.

Secondly, I feel like there's always a lot to be learned by watching others play.  The biggest takeaways for me tonight came in the areas of listening, note choice, and the art of restraint.

There were two other guitarists playing in Dickey's band tonight, and when they hit the stage, nothing felt like it was together at all.  The three of them were consistently playing all over each other, and had started what I thought might be a disastrous gig.  Things came together pretty quickly, though, with Dickey's concise, melodic playing reigning in the young hotshot guitarist he had along with him that showed no ability to play within the context of the song, and was instead spraying notes all over the stage.

It was cool to watch the main attraction lay back in the weeds a bit, directing things with his playing, being content to set the rhythmic pace of both the songs and the show itself.

The longer the band was on stage, the more comfortable they got, the better they played, so by the end of the night they really had things going smoothly.

The post tonight feels brief, but I'm exhausted and need to sleep.  Likely more on this the rest of the weekend.

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