Rockin' out down South

I just returned from the South where I did my first real dueling gig. I worked 4 nights and one afternoon with several different piano players and drummers. Armed with my 55 memorized songs I am proud to say I kicked some butt. Each night was different, with Saturday night being the absolute craziest. The club was filled to capacity. There were 3 of us that rotated on 2 pianos, so it was 1 hour onstage, and 1/2 hour offstage, then back up again. The drummer was situated downstage behind the two baby grands. The audience on Saturday night was packed with a lot of military guys that had just arrived stateside from Afganistan and Iraq, many of them finished their final tour and were getting out of the military within the week. We were rocking, we were getting filthy and we were having a ton of fun, and the room loved every second of it. So this is the payoff for all the work and the practicing and the memorizing...and it's damn worth it! So now, the work continues...learning and memorizing more and more songs and comedy bits. But, what a payoff. This could possibly be about the funnest job in the world. The next post I'll tell you about the redneck drama.

Job offer

Well, it is beginning. I got my first real job offer as a Dueler yesterday. The owner of the club I was training at all last week made a phone call and as a result I was invited to play a four night gig at another club down South. It will still be training, but the pay is fair, the travel expenses will be picked up and I will be playing the entire gig, not just sitting around watching. The guy I will be training with has an amazing reputation as an entertainer and as a musician, so I expect to learn a lot. I can already tell from talking to him several times that he has a very strong personality. This will be a real good opportunity to practice humility. Oy!! Oh, and I have been instructed NOT to bring any music up on stage with me. Which means, I have reduced my available repertoire down to about 25 songs. I expect that by the time I do this gig, in 3 weeks from now, I will have memorized another 15. This should be reeeal interesting. At least the guy training me is fully aware of where I'm at.

DuelingPiano Audition

I was invited down to the Carolinas to audition at a dueling piano bar. I sat in on Saturday with 3 other players and an adoring audience of 300 rock-lovin' southerners, singing Sweet Home Alabama and Santeria. Apparently the bar can and does hold 425 but it was a "light" night because of the NCAA final four games that night. So the good news is that I was invited to stay on through this weekend to continue the audition process. I expect to be back in NYC on Sunday. Now back to memorizing more lyrics!

Dueling Pianos, Dallas style

Yesterday I flew to Dallas to spend some time with my Brother's family. I rented a car, and am getting my suburban on. Last night bro and I took a ride into downtown Fort Worth where we were going to check out Pete's Dueling Pianos, but as we drove by, there are was a line of people waiting to get in. So we then drove 15 miles to Lewisville where we went to another dueling piano bar called Rockin' Ivories. It is in a strip mall, and is a very large space, with most people sitting at tables. Perhaps there were 40-50 tables with about 3-4 people at each, and then a smaller bar where there was about 35 people gathered around. The stage was very large with two grand pianos, and a full drum kit. There was a full mirror that was set at an angle behind them that spanned the length of the stage so you could see their fingers and the tops of their pianos. The 2 pianists would alternate, one playing drums while the other played piano. They played all the standard rock piano songs, and the crowd was completely involved. The bar made a ton of money and so did the pianists. Apparently they only do the dueling pianos on Fridays and Saturdays, but the money that the bar makes on those two days alone justifies the business. Praise be!