Outside the ballroom at CHI 2011

The Vancouver Convention Center West

Today I’ll be performing at the new Vancouver convention center with Gabriel Mark Hasselbach’s Zen Soundscapes.

We now have two Vancouver Convention Centers right beside each other so we now label them as VCC West and VCC East to be sure we all show up at the right venue. So for

The Zen Soundscapes Trio setup - Check out the view behind us!

Our trio set up at CHI 2011

this gig I’ll plan on arriving at the loading dock of VCC West no later than 4:30 pm.

For this gig we’re not permitted to enter through the main doors. It makes perfect sense as it’s really tacky to have everyone carting all their gear into the venue during a high profile event.

The view from my chair before the gig

My guitar rig - guitar to GE7 to Aura 16 to T1 to PA

Once again with Zen Soundscapes there are no charts and we just make it up as we go. This is the kind of gig they don’t teach in college. “The art of playing Zen music” What is that? I’m still not exactly sure what we’re playing however it always sounds great and I have a blast every time I play with these guys!

Most of the time somebody starts playing something and we all join in to see where it takes us. Once in a while we may call out a key. Sometimes we may even play a jazz standard or Ottmar Liebert style tune. It’s all very zen???

The view of Stanley Park behind us

People arriving to the conference ballroom

The nice part about this gig is I don’t have to bring a sound system. Just my guitar and amp. I’ll use my flamenco guitar however this gig would be just as cool with my strat. (Fender electric).

Once again I have no idea who we are performing to however upon arrival I discovered that we will be playing the CHI 2011 Conference on Human Factors in Computing System.

I arrived at the venue’s loading dock at 4:45 pm and was escorted to the ballroom were I met up with Gabriel M. Hasselbach and Tilden Webb (keyboards). They were already set up and ready to go. Five minutes later I was also set up and ready to play. Being a sideman can be wonderful as there is no sound system to set up.

We're back there performing against the glass surrounded by a sea of people!

For this gig I’m using my flamenco guitar plugged into my boss GE7 eq pedal (for a volume boost and eq). From there I’m plugged into my Fishman Aura 16 then to the bose T1 digital mixer. I use the bose T1 as a preamp for my guitar. The T1 also gives me delay, reverb and compression. From there I’m plugged into a DI (direct box) then to a D212 powered monitor and the Zen Soundscapes sound system.

Even Google was there, How Cool was That!

We began our performance at 5:30pm and I played until 6:30pm. At that time I took a 15 minute break. This was a massive conference, I couldn’t believe all the people that were here! Also here were all the internet players such as Google, Paypal, Ebay, etc… Very interesting!

I went back to the band stand at 6:45pm and we continued performing to 7:30pm. Once I was done it was time to pack up my guitar rig and hit the road home.

Check back Wednesday as I’ll be performing with guitarist Andre Stepanian out at Simon Fraser University (SFU) for their noon hour concert series.

Stay tuned…