Karl Mohr Combo

Karl Mohr invited me to play bass for a gig the Combo had at the Korumburra Buskers Festival. They had lost their bass player and the new replacement wasn't available, so I was the fill in/contract player role.

The biggest issue of the gig was the fact that we were performing on the first floor of the Astor Hotel. That means stairs and I'm no fan of them as it means a lot of hard manual labour to get your gear up and down the stairs. Luckily I had some assistance with the speakers as they were the hardest to move.

The line up was Karl on occasional lead vocals, Alan on lead guitar, Bill on rhythm guitar and Garry on drums, oh yes, and me on bass.

We had had a rehearsal a few days before and that helped but I was under a misunderstanding. I thought it was a rehearsal of their songs. No, no. It was a rehearsal to create two songs of my material. No problems, we just plundered my song list.

The best part of the night was to get through the gig with my ears intact. This came about because Garry was using an electric Yamaha drum kit. The speakers were on the other side of the stage, just where I want them.

We all took turns at singing which evened out the solo duties.

My biggest issue was playing bass and singing at the same time. You would think that was easy as I can do that with a guitar. But no, keeping time and singing at the same time is a different ball game. I improved as the evening progressed.

I played my bass through an iPad that had a Fender bass emulator through my P.A., a really good sound.

All in all, good fun.