I had a wonderful opportunity to revisit Symphony Hall, and revisit with all my fellow tradesmen and women, who make music in the Lehigh Valley. Miriam and Mike put on their 11th extravaganza, and the sound was good (Phil!), food in the green room healthy, and nice big house of folks. Jazz to blues to celtic to folk to rock to me…..
I emceed the start of the second set, and introduced Zen (Cabaret rock?), The Holmes Family (gospel), and BC and Jake. My set would follow in about 20 minutes.
The former mayor of Bethlehem, Don Cunningham (he’s got a band, too), introduced me as the legendary Dave Fry. Surprised me, too.
I don’t know why I do this, but I decided to premier a new song for my first song in Symphony Hall. Boy, this is wrong on so many levels…. But I had found the perfect song for the occasion. I had been working on Kent Aldrich’s ‘Santa Assassin’ pretty hard, Kent sent it to me a week ago, so I took my time, put on my shades (it worked), and went ahead. As people caught on, small waves of laughter came from the right, and soon, there was full house o’ chuckles. It went very well.
I decided to play something more ‘up and rocking’, so I did ‘Mary had a Baby’, the crowd picked up the parts parts quickly, and we were off. I enjoyed ‘movin’ through the elements’, and added my three lines at the end. Nice fat ringing chord at the end. and off stage. It was a good set and added to the evening in my own way.
Other musicians came up and commented how great my guitar sounded, “filled the hall’, a sound I had hoped for, but couldn’t experience from stage. Phil, and City Entertainment, have done my sound for a long time, and it was a small leap of faith, with little set up. Cool. Me and my little Martin…