Now, comes the hard work...

The paring down of the set list and the assembling of the order.

We when were in the early days of discussing this upcoming benefit show (see previous posts), Sonia threw out in one of our email volleys the need for "two hours of music." The estimate based on the average bar-gig of being a four-hour night—this one shared by two bands. I immediately replied, "Everyone pick six songs"—absolutely based on nothing, except maybe the crazy notion that 24 songs, 12 songs-a-set, sounded like a good idea.

So, for the past two weeks we've been rehearsing 24 songs. Our estimates were not that off. We ran the recording last night pretty much straight through—no pauses after songs—all our rehearsal room chatter, all the moving about to change instruments, all the unplugging and re-plugging of any amp or effect switches, etc. etc. etc. And it all came out to about an hour and 55 minutes.

What doesn't work in this equation are the following:
1. Our set time is 1 hour and 30 minutes.

2. We grouped our songs to be rehearsed in order of instrument changes ie., all the songs where Jim plays accordion and Sonia plays guitar followed by all the songs Jim plays guitar and Sonia plays sax followed by all the songs Jim plays keyboard and Sonia.... and on and on. This makes for ease of switching instruments and it saves time and we will use some of these back-to-back songs in our final set list but it also limits the variety in our song choices and styles—one of what we feel is a strong suit of our band's sound.

3. There's bits of talk in between the songs on last night's recording—but mostly of the nature of "Hold on a minute, I need to tune this E string" or "Is everybody all set?" But in all, there's no where near the space allotted for the proper introduction of songs, the acknowledgment of the people involved in putting this benefit together and the announcement of things to come—in other words, all the normal "live-show" stage banter. All that is not accounted for.

So, as Sonia heads off to a much deserved vacation, Jim, myself and Paul will begin that daunting task of "coming up with a set list."

Now, this may be the point where some one out in the blogosphere might be thinking "HA! Sonia takes off and Jim, slatts and Paul fix the length of the set list problem by cutting out all her songs!" But that thinking comes from those who have not heard her sing. Chances are she'll come back to find she's singing ALL THE SONGS of our new "made-to-fit" set list!

Stay tuned...