So last Thursday I got to break in my new Deluxe Reverb Reissue at an LDS (Mormon) wedding here in Phoenix...

Let me preface this story by saying I have nothing against mormons... They are generally very nice folks who never bother me... I have never had an issue with them.. Also, our big jazz band decided to play as a 5 piece combo for this gig.. So I was looking forward to putting the brass aside and play some more guitar featured music...

Our plan was to play an hour of real-book jazz cocktail music (cocktail music at an LDS wedding LOL !) and then take a break and then do some more upbeat music so maybe they can dance a bit...

Well, we went ahead and did the Cocktail set where the cocktails consisted of drinks with no caffeine, alcohol, or carbonation... And it was a hit.. They loved those slow low volumed ballads.. Nice safe conservative music... Nice and boring.. Just what they love...

After our break I switched from my Guild X170 to my les paul custom and proceded to plug into my 22 watt Deluxe Reverb so we could enterain the 100's of folks in this 4000+ Square foot hall...

Well, our first tune was "Play that Funky Music WHite Boy" and we were off jamming away with some funk... Little did we know that some folks started to leave the hall.. And there were complaints rolling into our director to "turn it down" and not play so "hard" ... Unfortunately I decided to kick in the evil overdrive pedal during my solo... That awful devil machinery...

I am not sure how a 22 watt amp could be too loud for a huge hall like that... I was floored... We followed up funky music with songs like spooky, and fever and them from that Ghost movie and My Girl...

Well for some reason we were still too loud... and complaints still kept rolling in...

I guess we will know better next time not to play any R&B or for that matter any upbeat music at an LDS event...

And the funny thing is our male vocalist IS A MORMON... For the rest of my life I will never understand this... I guess it's possible to have folks grow up in the same area and be in two totally different cultures and thought processes...

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In Reference to Blues Legend RL Burnside:
After a heart attack in 2001, Burnside's doctor advised him to stop drinking; Burnside did, but he reported that change left him unable to play.

Pardon my complete ignorance, but what does LDS mean?

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Website: http://www.rebeccalaird.com
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Latter Day Saints... Its the politically correct way to say mormon...

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In Reference to Blues Legend RL Burnside:
After a heart attack in 2001, Burnside's doctor advised him to stop drinking; Burnside did, but he reported that change left him unable to play.

Oh, that makes sense. All the mormons I've known have always called themselves mormons, I guess they aren't politically correct.

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I don't think mormon is a slur.. but most if not all of the mormons I have come across here in AZ refer to themselves as LDS...

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In Reference to Blues Legend RL Burnside:
After a heart attack in 2001, Burnside's doctor advised him to stop drinking; Burnside did, but he reported that change left him unable to play.

sounds to me like they just didnt like the music.
"turn it down" is a polite way of saying so.
should have slowly worked back to the first sets
style of jams.

It's too bad you didn't have a Twin Reverb to plug into so the DR would have seemed sort of tame afterward.

I wouldn't have blamed you to pack it up and just go without your check at that point. You obviously weren't being enjoyed by the crowd... what's the point in staying?

I do have a problem of having little patience with some people. It usually hurts me more than it does them.

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You're only as strong as
the drinks you pour,
the tables you dance on,
and the friends you roll with.

Its tought to hear that.... but I think you are correct..

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In Reference to Blues Legend RL Burnside:
After a heart attack in 2001, Burnside's doctor advised him to stop drinking; Burnside did, but he reported that change left him unable to play.

cajun

hey you know we cant please everybody.
in situations like that ya gotta regroup and
head in the right direction. your band was
lucky that evening, you had the first set to
guide you as to what they wanted to hear.
try it when the first set goes south and
you gotta search for the right music almost
from the start lol. PRESSURE!
hey its a learning lesson. you cant close camp
when you find that your offerings arent being
recieved very well. ya never know whos listening.
so tell us how it all ended up.
could be a good learning point for the readers.

..turn it up CajunBlues!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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I Can't Explain

Agreed - That was your cue to melt some faces!!

I think you're right...weddings are always tough. Too much diversity in age and likes/dislikes. If you checked who was leaving, bet it wasn't many of the younger crowd.

-T

You set the tone for the event by starting with jazz.
I bet if you'd started with the lite rock there'da bin no problems.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

I know several Mormons, they all like loud rock, so go figure right?

Anyway, I think you may have missed the mark a bit as a wedding band.
back when I did those kinds of gigs we would always work out a set list and present it to the people who hired us, and then adjust it. We didn't really let them pick out the list, but we were open to suggestions, and we would try tailor the list to the crowd. like if there were going to be people of different generations, we would play some waltz and polka kind of stuff early, and slowly move toward more rock by the final set.

Wedding gigs are a little different animal than playing at a pub. You need to figure out what the crowd is like, and go from there.

Cheers.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

Whenever I played electric guitar in church at my old church people used to react like that, so the epidemic of lameness isn't just limited to mormons.

My wedding is going to feature full volume electric blues, and I'll encourage anyone who has a problem with it to leave.

_________________
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