Thanks again.

Patrick

We really got a good feel for which songs work and the ones that need to go bye bye.  With a crowd like this the lame songs really showed their ugly heads.  We will keep tweaking things until we get it just right.  We are getting very close though. 

All in all it was an awesome night.  The band was tight and I think it is the best we have sounded thus far.  We all got into it,  but it helps when you have a good crowd to feed off of. 

I can not thank everyone enough for getting Heavy Water off the ground and running.  The year was filled with its share of ups and downs but by the looks of how it ended I think we reached a new high.  Our goal is to expand on this and make the second year twice as good. 

Stay tuned and keep on coming out!

Heavy Water  

Keep your eyes and ears open for new songs being added to the Set List with these next few weeks! The year is almost closing which means we are closing in on our 1st year as a band! And its been a great first year for us! We’ve had a lot of fun making our first impressions to the area with our style of funky bits of rock, blues and of course country! Hope to see you all soon!

LATER!

Patrick.

Check back often to see when we’re playing near YOU!

Patrick.

-Heavy Water

I guess the most significant thing that stands out about this show was that the crowd situation was the opposite of normal. Usually we have less people in the first set, and it builds up as the night goes on, but at this show, more people were there when we arrived and slowly cleared out.

It was not without its benefits, though. The third set was the real peak of people on the dance floor and definitely the highlight of the night for me. Specifically, during Hard to Handle, I had told the guys to follow me into a tease of “Play That Funky Music” by Wild Cherry. The transition was so seamless and the energy of the crowd was so noticeably increased that I figured we had to give them at least a verse and a chorus (we gave them two). We had tossed around the idea of adding this song to the list, but now its a definite.

Saturday was also the debut of “Right Where I Need to Be”, a Gary Allan song that we learned pretty much on the spot that day. This tune is going to be a mainstay as well, it already sounds great and has the potential to be stretched out and given the full Heavy Water treatment.

Ok, next up is the Dan Moen Memorial Antique Tractor Pull and Street Dance in Taylor, which I’m certain will be a completely different experience altogether. For me, that’s really part of the fun - if every week is something new, then every show our first show.

Hope to see you there!

Fox Hollow was great.  Plain and simple, we liked them and they liked us.  So much so that we booked four dates including New Years Eve.  Dave, the owner, didn’t even let us finish the night before he had his date book out.  His biggest compliment was how we played a true variety of music.  There was something for everyone.  Exactly as we intended this band to be from the start.

Musically it was another solid night.  The set list flowed well and harmonies were good as usual, but one thing in particular stood out.  Our improvising and freestyle jams were the best they have ever been.  We are starting to really gell.  We now anticipate and take cues from one another.  Chris and I played off of each other quite a bit, and the rythmn section of Gary and Patrick, well they are in sync.

This really felt like a turning point gig.  The band is definately on a sharp upswing.  Of course we would be nothing without the people who come to see us.  Thanks for the kind words of encouragement and for the regular faces we are starting to see.  To quote a song, “The futures so bright I gotta where shades”.  Ok maybe I’m not a great writer.  Don’t fret Chris will be back with his better written take on things.

Don’t forget to check out the new Fox Hollow dates on our calender!

We left off on Saturday, June 21st, where Heavy Water was double-booked. Our first show that afternoon at Elsie’s in Caledonia, MN was blogged here, but, obviously, that’s only half the story. Our second show was at the Stockyard in Coon Valley, and it was something else.

This was by far the tightest gig so far, and I think I speak for all of us when I say that one of the main reasons was that we had played earlier that day. We arrived at the Stockyard already warmed up (both in the literal and figurative sense of the word), and with much of our setlist still fresh in our minds, there were a lot less flubs, tighter endings and more exercised vocals. So, lots of good stuff.

We were outside again, but instead of being fully exposed and standing on a flatbed, we were in a tent and standing on some pretty dusty dirt. If you can picture Pigpen from the Peanuts cartoons, that’s about what I felt like most of the night. As seems to always be the case, the dance floor was pretty empty for the first two sets. This was the first time I really noticed that our setlists do a good job of steadily building up energy throughout the night.

As is also typical, the crowd picked up in the third set and went pretty hard until the end of the night. The fourth set rocked, as usual, but as we were wrapping it up, we were asked to keep playing for another hour. We were really feeling it, so there was no way we could turn it down. So, that led to our first 5th set. Keeping in mind that we had been going since 9:00 that morning, it was amazing that we were still standing upright, let alone being amped up for another set.

One thing that became painfully obvious, though, was that we needed to expand our repertoire for times like these, but we really rose to the occasion.  We doubled up some favorites, took requests, improvised our signature funk jam, and I pulled out Son Seals’ Funky Bitch, since its an easy blues pattern. As for other highlights, the All Summer Long > Sweet Home Alabama was really the hit of the night. Kudos to Cody for coming up with that idea, its a keeper.

As for other highlights, I really couldn’t say. Mostly because everything was pretty tight, but also because I was on autopilot through much of the 4th and 5th sets, and I don’t remember much. We finished out the night around 2:00am, totally exhausted, but really pleased about how the whole day went.

“I think the sun is coming up,” I said, half-awake.

“I don’t even want to know about that,” was Patrick’s reply.

And I really couldn’t blame him. Almost 20 hours earlier, we were in this very same spot, loading my equipment into his Jeep, but with a very different mindset. Heavy Water was double-booked, and we anticipated a very full day, but I don’t think any of us expected the kind surrealistic, adrenaline-fueled sets that we pulled off in those early hours in Coon Valley.

The first show was at Elsie’s Bar and Grill in Caledonia, Minnesota, where we were the first of a few scheduled acts to play Elsie’s inaugural outdoor live music festival. Elsie is going to do these once a month all summer long, and we’re booked at all of them, so if you’re in the area, be sure to drop by.

I’ve said before, every gig is worth playing, if only for the experience. If I were to sum up the entire show in three words, they would have to be “sound”, “space” and “light”. I know, I know, sounds pretty new-agey, right?

Actually, it’s definitively not. Our sound at this show was the best so far, and it had everything to do with our setup. We were on a flat-bed outdoors with our mains facing out towards another structure across the way, which provided a perfect sounding board. For the first time, the space allowed us to hear everything with perfect precision, and that really helped us pull out two really good sets.

However, I think the sun finally caught up with us in the third and final set - the light and heat was relentless, and I think it sapped some of the energy out of the band. It had it’s moments, but clearly we had hit a wall. Thankfully, the spartan crowd that had gathered outside was more than accommodating, and they seemed to enjoy every minute. I think the best thing about this gig was that we finally got to interact with the crowd between sets on a one-to-one basis. There were some real characters at that show, and they all had a front-row seat.

As for highlights, this show was the first roll-out of our All Summer Long > Sweet Home Alabama, and that was a lot of fun. The songs work together seamlessly, sometimes I could barely tell which riff I’m playing, but that was really the point. We also pulled off an unplanned segue from Walk Away > Rockin’ In the Free World– that’s a keeper.

Here’s the three-set setlist for the abbreviated show (this was a three-hour gig). I’ll post about the gig at the Stockyard next. To be continued…

1
You May Be Right
Redneck Girl (Intro Night)
You Don’t Mess Around
Stuck In The Middle
House Is A Rocking
Big River
Elegantly
You’re 16
Twist and Shout
Walk Away >
Rocking in the Free World

2
Harder To Breathe
Brown Eyed Girl
Runaway
Splish Splash
The Dance
Somebody Like You
Running Down A Dream
Jam Introducing Band
Unchain My Heart

3
Centerfield
Hard to Handle
What About Now
Fun Fun Fun
Jenny Jenny
You Wreck Me
Already Gone
Proud Mary
All Summer Long >
Sweet Home Alabama
I Want You To Want Me
Fishing In The Dark

That being said, Friday nights’ gig at Lake Arbutus Resort had a little but of a different dynamic than our first couple of shows, mostly because it started out a little dicey. The crowd in the bar at 8:00pm when we started was pretty thin, and was mostly a dinner crowd. Unbeknown-st to us, our first set from 8-8:45 was supposed to be dinner music. Of course, we don’t play anything that could be considered dinner music. So, we were told to turn it down after the first couple of songs because we were too loud.

We understood completely, and had we been aware that the first set should have been more low key, we could have planned around it. Hell, we could have played a 45-minute improvisational jazz piece. Or, given the chance, I’m sure Cody would have played the Billy Joel songbook front to back while Gary, Patrick and I rented ATVs. In any event, we ended up throwing the first set songlist out the window and playing some slower or mid-tempo stuff, and we hope that smoothed things over.

The crowd stayed thin through the second set, and that was a bit disappointing, but it allowed us to relax a little as we stopped taking ourselves so seriously. Third and fourth set finally did pick up, though, especially towards the end when the crowd was (finally!) starting to get rowdy.

For me, the highlights of the show were Elegantly Wasted, which I really think needs to be pushed back later into the night, and Hard to Handle. Specifically, both of these songs unintentionally drifted off the proverbial path when we missed a cue somewhere, but both resulted in some pretty cool improvisational jams that eventually resolved quite naturally. I know I sometimes push the band in this direction, often to their dismay, but I really think its a testament to a band to be able to listen to each other so well that we can pull it off. Like it says on on the Bookings page, “sometimes we even surprise ourselves!”.

All in all, it wasn’t a bad show, we are definitely starting to sound tighter, and I am personally starting to feel more comfortable on stage. Gigs are kind of like job interviews in that even if you don’t get the job, its always worth it for the practice.

I’m not going to post a setlist for this show because we really winged it after the first few songs, and continued to rearrage as the night went on. Onward to next weekend, where we have a double-booked Saturday at Elsie’s in Caledonia, then Stockyard Grill & Saloon in Coon Valley. See you on the dance floor!