So I travelled to Batesville Mississippi Saturday to go see ZZ Top again, even though I’d just seen them in my home town, Pensacola on Thursday. I brought my cheapest bass, a Slick P bass, with my Spark Neo Core headphones, Roadie Tuner and cable in a gig bag. I didn’t want to miss a day of practice. So I practiced in my hotel room after the show.
Maybe it’s something in the Blues soaked North Mississippi Hills region, but the 4 months of bass practice I’ve done all came together in that hotel room practice session. After I played the songs I warm up with on the Spark app, I found a drum track playlist on YouTube.
The below the 12th fret improv lesson, the 12 bar blues scales, the major and minor scales all came out of me and I played for an hour. And it sounded pretty good. I only made a few mistakes.
Felt a bit mystical and special for this to happen in North Hills Mississippi country on Easter weekend right after seeing ZZ Top. Funny how it all just clicked in that room.
Where did your Bass Epiphany happen?
My Honda Ridgeline sits under stormy skies of the Batesville Civic Center. It’s a great truck even though it was based on a mini van. The iVTM4 AWD system is super advanced and kept me safe on some of the contraflow highways I had to take from Pensacola FL to Batesville MS.
Didn’t realize when I bought the ticket for the Batesville show that Drivin and Cryin were opening up for ZZ Top. Love this bass rig!
Really sweet iconic poster for the event.
The Batesville Civic Center proves that if you build a large enough steel building someone will drive up from Pensacola FL to see ZZ Top in it.
Similar vibes to the film Almost Famous (2000) here with the tour busses under stormy skies outside the Batesville Civic Center.
Not as good as the seats I had in Pensacola, but Row 14, Seat 1 was pretty good.
Wide shot from the same seat. The Mississippi crowd was more lively than Pensacola. They went nuts during Jesus Just Left Chicago during the part about turning muddy Mississippi water into wine. Very special to hear that song on Easter Weekend. Special crowd. Will be back.
My Slick P Bass sitting on the couch in my hotel room. It was only $220 delivered. It makes the perfect instrument for this kind of thing. All I did was put new strings on it and it plays killer. And I didn’t have to worry about my nice Fender, Seymour Duncan, or Schecter basses. Being cheap is also why I had no problem customizing it with a bunch of stickers. Bought a 100 count Bitcoin sticker pack and went nuts with it right after I bought it. Overall it’s a pretty good bass. It has 1 knob. It’s brass too. It’s relic’d on the body and even the pickup. The neck is unfinished and feels good. The big difference in quality is felt where the fret ends aren’t as sweet as on my more expensive basses.