Boom Pony Beatlefest II (03.15.14)

It was quite awhile ago, perhaps a month or more, that I got a message from my manager Maali Beck. She wanted to know if I wanted to perform again at the Boom Pony's Beatlefest event. I'd played the last one as a fill-in for an artist who wasn't able to perform, and it was great; a huge crowd was in attendance, and it was a blast hearing my fellow musicians doing Fab Four tunes all day.

The cool thing about having plenty of notice this time around was that while I always have a big repertoire of Beatles tunes, it gave me time to do two things: choose some tunes I hadn't played before, and get a little help from my friends. That came in the form of Kat, my lovely girlfriend and bandmate in They Stole My Crayon, who rehearsed with me on backing vocals and percussion and then joined me for the show. It was the first time, outside of a few times playing for our close friends at Triana's Music Trivia, that Kat has done a live show with me in SL.

As far as I'm concerned, it couldn't have gone better. We got to the Boom very early, knowing that it would be jam packed, and heard parts of the shows of three artists before us (Tamra Hayden, Kevin M. Thomas, and Pete Mroz) before we took the stage for a half hour at 2:30. I get inspired when I'm playing on a bill with other talented people, and just about everything we heard that day was great. I need to give special kudos to Frederick Reed, who does amazing original arrangements with super creative on-the-fly looping and sonic sculpting that puts him in his own class.

Back to our set. I did my usual thing of playing acoustic guitar and singing lead vocals, while Kat shifted back and forth between a number of percussion tools (clave, crow sounder, tambourine, and so on) along with harmony and backing vocals on most songs. I always enjoy actual live interaction between musicians, and Kat had really practiced her parts so that her natural talent and enthusiasm made up for her relative lack of experience. It all came out great.

Boom Pony Beatlefest II set list...
*Tomorrow Never Knows (Beatles)
Norwegian Wood (Beatles)
Eleanor Rigby (Beatles)
I Am the Walrus (Beatles)
*Fool On The Hill (Beatles)
*Hey Bulldog (Beatles)
A Day In the Life (Beatles)

*Indicates the first time I've performed these songs in SL.

Big thanks for including Kat and I in the lineup for Beatlefest, and special thanks to those who helped support the show!
Funkyfreddy Republic, Trixie Bumbo, Winter Thorn, Shambala Pearl, Athena Chardin, Taliesyn Drachnyd, Ayesha Lytton, Kaj Qinan, Horatio Freund, my manager Maali Beck, and the Boom's Andi Karsin, Kiran Sporg, and Aznana Shieldmaiden, and most of all my darling Kat for her great musical performance!