My set at Blue Haven didn't go too well. I arrived well in time for the 12.00 noon start, and was greeted by Tess, Ticious and Reg. Nad Gough was playing and I had about 20 minutes to gather my thoughts and make sure I had everything I needed in my real life study/studio - The url for the Blue Haven stream server, lyrics, capo, glass of wine to calm my nerves. Around 12.00 some familiar faces appeared on the dancefloor: SL stars TallGuy Kidd (Dale Marsh from Texas) and Capos Calderwood (aka Alex Whitmore also from Texas), and Tower Sands from Blackpool, England, who plays earth-shattering Ambient and Dance music using a keyboard, guitar and his amazing synthesizer equipment. I wondered what was happening when Nad played right through 12.00. On and on he went asking whether it was ok to play on, but ignoring on-screen messages that my set was supposed to start at 12.00. It was around 12.15 when he stopped and I could get on the stream. But then the problems began. I could still hear Nad's voice counting down 42, 41,....(LOL) and I couldn't seem to connect. A few minutes later and I was streaming in to the Blue Haven, but the whole set was plagued by sound problems. First there was looping, and then my guitar was too quiet and I was told my bass strings were distorted. Some adjustments my end and I had the thumbs up from Tess. By now it was after 3.30 and some of the audience had left. I introduced my first song, Autumn Leaves in the style of Eva Cassidy and began my set. Then came skipping problems as I could see from the chat on the screen. I finished before 4.30 and I must have played around 15 songs. Tess had recorded the whole thing, but only 4 or 5 songs were glitch-free, the rest were blipping, skipping and flippin like fu.....n
Lately there seem to have been similar technical problems with other venues and musicians in SL. I just hope that everything is fixed in time for my next gig at the beautiful Rocky Shores on Thurs 13th Sept.
