Being that 2018 is nearly over I wanted to take some time to reflect. This year has been a big year on many fronts. Obviously this blog is about music and so today, in this blog post, I wanted to reflect on this past year as a musician. I particularly want to focus on performances.
This year's schedule held a count of 78 diverse gigs. Everything from solo Jazz guitar on a porch at the 40th birthday party of someone I'd never met to leading worship in the gorgeous Dimnent Chapel for a group that consisted of mostly friends and family and friends of family. I played gigs for thousands of people and also gigs for roughly 6 or 7 people, one one day and the other the next. I played gigs with just me and a guitar and I also played gigs where I was but one of nearly 30 some people on stage. I recklessly ripped blistering riffs on the electric guitar and sometimes I just played light chords to add to the composition. I played solo, I played for a rapper, I played for praise bands, a house band, various Jazz ensembles, as the lone accompaniment for vocalists and more. I played in churches of many different denominations, school cafeterias, auditoriums, gymnasiums, rooms that could hold thousands and rooms where 27 was pushing it. I played at a rather crowded outdoor supermarket, the back room of a bistro, the steps of an art museum, a summer camp, I played all over the place. Every show was important and special in some way even if maybe seemed like a train-wreck or a chore at the time. Here are some of the gig highlights and stats from this year. My favorite gig of the year would have to be March 18 at Madison Square Church in Grand Rapids. There were a lot of really incredible gigs this year that in my mind can certainly compete with this one but i think this one takes the cake. For this gig I was a part of the house band at a talent show happening at a friend of mine's church for the night. There were a lot of factors that made this gig so wonderful, one of which was who I got to play with. My bud Josiah DeNooyer was on drums and keys (He's and absolute monster at both), my bud Jasper Fuentes was on bass (the guy can make it funky, and he can play guitar better than myself) and my bud Jared Coad was on vocals so yeah, the band was kickin'. Also, We were performing with this sweet light rig. To make things even better I just generally get really excited about gigging in Grand Rapids. To add to that even more We played this epic medley to kick the night off which You can watch below and there were some really talented acts in the talent show and the crowd was really into it. We also, at one point had an audience member join us onstage to take a keys solo, and I totally learned the song "Stand By Me" onstage and played a solo that went over really well. So many things that made this gig as wonderful as it was. Here's a video of the medley, sorry for the video quality (or lack-thereof).
The largest gig of the year, for me, was Dazzle on May 8. Okay, I'm actually not certain about this but it's one of the biggest ones. I also played a few Holland Christian School Systems Convocation events and those can probably compete with the turnout (not that my playing really impacted the turnout). I'm going to say it's safe to estimate that the audience at Dazzle was 1,000 to 2,000 people, maybe more but that's a ballpark guess. The gig was great for reasons other than turnout. Played this really dope version of "St. James Infirmary" with some amigos (Ben Walters on keys, Gerrit Wiegerink on bass, Aaron Kwon on drums, Aiden Baggech and Levi VanAst on sax). Messed it up a bit but hey... Jazz.
The smallest gig of the year was, with almost no competition, August 30 at the Elbo Room Bistro in Zeeland. Attendance: about 7 people. 1 of which was the open mic host and 3 of which were family members of mine and 1 of which was the bartender. Sure, this was a small gig but in some sense it was a big one for me. I am used to performing in groups but for this performance it was just me. Just me and an acoustic guitar playing a Pedro The Lion cover. This gig was significant in my development as a performer because it was more experience with solo performing and it was my first performing at an open mic. I've since tried to go back to that open mic night (it's weekly) but have had too many rehearsal conflicts and assignment to do so. Anyways, here's a video from that night. Enjoy. Sorry again for how these videos from Google Drive are rendering on the page. You might as well just click the link to watch them in a separate tab.
The most performances on a singular day occurred on September 23. The 3 performances were all, actually, at the same venue. Before I go on explaining the beast of day that was September 23 let me mention other days this year that held at least 2 performances: March 16, March 18, April 20, May 17, June 3, September 16, November 9 and December 23. Yeah, so there were some busy days this year. But anyways, back to the 23rd of September. Basically I was on all day over at Central Wesleyan doing church services (2 of them) for middle-schoolers in the morning and playing for high-schoolers in the evening. T'was a heck of a day. If I remember correctly that was also the day I lost the keys to the car I'd driven to the gig. So yeah, heck of a day.
The largest run of days with at least one gig in a row was from March 23-25. Boy, there were some incredible gigs in that run that could compete in the leagues of March 18. The evenings of both March 23 and 24 I played guitar in the Living Hope Singers Showcase 2018. Honestly it was wonderful. There were talented people onstage and talented people up in the tech booth (lights and sound). I was the lone accompaniment for 2 acts. One, a friend of mine who now lives in California who covered Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide" and another act of two fine folks who covered Coldplay's "The Scientist". For me, being in a situation I'm not usually in, the gig presented an honestly fantastic feeling of fear for me to experience. Often I can get too comfortable in certain musical settings and that comfort can at times suck out the adrenaline and excitement out of performing but those two gigs brought me back to it. On top of that, I'd seen the event previous years and really enjoyed it and the acts this past year were wonderful. There were a lot of wonderful people onstage who are wonderful in many ways and the same for people involved in the performance in behind the scenes ways. Plus there was a lot of good food backstage and some crazy great people in the audience who I hadn't seen in a while. On March 25, to top off the weekend, I led worship on the electric guitar at Haven CRC in Zeeland with some other fine folks. And now, for some honorable mentions. This year was filled with so many great gigs and You probably don't care to read my rambling on about every one I enjoyed so I'll try and keep these next ones quick. Some more gigs I loved from 2018 were: March 7 HCHS Taize Chapel. Good grief, I love playing with orchestras. Really simple but powerful music and the room was dark and only lit by candles, there was lots of singing and strings and it was spiritually rejuvenating. May 17 at the Jack. H Miller Center for Musical Arts at Hope College with the HCHS Jazz Orchestra. I've wanted to play that venue for a long time. It's a crazy wonderful space acoustically, and I played a solo I'm rather proud of that night. Also, that was the day before I released "Red, Blue & White" so that was sweet. June 9 at Terra Square in Hudsonville. A little rain couldn't stop us! The music had to be played! Okay, so maybe that's a bit dramatic but either way it was a good time. Had never played a farmer's market before. The gig was great for both aforementioned reasons and also because the crew was Jasper Fuentes on bass, Jared Coad on vocals and Malachi Corliss (who I'd never worked with before until that day) on drums. So yeah, pretty class crew and since we all had some Jazz background We pretty much just jammed on Jazz standards and Pop songs the whole time. Also, check a little video of it with this little -> -> link here <- <- November 9, Swingin' The Night Away was a blast too. Jazz + Friends = nearly always a great time. On top of that I was just felt really on point that night and that, I think it was evident in my playing and I felt that the audience could hear that. Here's a little clip.. (again, sorry that the embedded video is being weird!)
There were various awesome HCHS Chapels. I play so many that it's hard to remember exact dates but I think I remember September 21 being particularly great. The folks are just killing it this year as far as audience response is concerned (Side note: I had calling Them an "audience" in a worship setting, but I'm having trouble finding a better name). But really, I remember coming off of the first chapel I played this 2018-19 school year and going "Dang. Wow. This is gonna be a great year." and really, it has been. I'd also like to mention some other wonderful chapels from 2018. Here are some in no particular order that I haven't yet mentioned: May 17 (find the video on Vimeo and You'll see why), December 7 (played some pretty fun Christmas tunes), and a good number of other chapels I've forgotten to mention.
A funny gig-related video from this year:
Well, I think that's all I've got to say for now! Thanks for reading/watching/listening! Hope this was somewhat enjoyable. So many great gigs in 2018, massive thanks to all who I had the privilege of sharing the stage with in 2018, to everyone in the audience (or the "audience" or whatever a better word is for the worship "audience"), to everyone behind the scenes, to everyone. Here's to a great 2019!
Thanks again! Jacob H.
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