So it's been a while since I've posted anything and a lot has happened so I will split it up into several posts. So after living and working in London for a few months I started looking for a band. Through gumtree I met a lot of good musicians and jamed with a lot of them in the studio in my building. In the end I got on with a singer songwriter I met from Kentish Town and we put together a set list of songs he wrote during his solo project. We had a lot of influences in common and felt comfortable playing blues rock together, me on guitar and him on guitar and vocals. We both put ads on gumtree and began auditioning for other musician. We took on a lead guitarist for a while but it didn't really work out so I became the lead guitarist and soon had to find myself an electric guitar. I scored and awesome deal on eBay on a Hofner shorty (yep another travel guitar), I will review this nice little guitar in a post later. Next we found a bassist that had played with the the singer (from here on our front man) and soon after we found a good fit for a drummer. After we had filled the position for drummer we had a reply to one of our wanted ads from a lady who still really wanted to audition. When we met her we explained that we had found a drummer already but where always keen to jam with new people, so she pulled out a set of harmonicas and told us to play a 12 bar blues. When she joined right in with the harmonica we realised this kind of sound was perfect for our band. We spent our time for a month or so learning the songs writing our parts to them and rehearsing the set list. Soon it was time for a name to give the promoters we looked around at how we all came from different places, decided on the name and Atlantic Rising was born. Our front-man had been in the business for a while during his solo career and got to know lots of venues and promoters so as soon as we felt comfortable he started contacting people and in just a short time we had a gig at the Enterprise in Camden. I'll never forget the feeling of walking in for my first sound check on a proper stage at a proper venue above a pub in London. I was extremely intimidated and excited at the same time. It was a dream come true, I had been hoping for this ever since we made plans to move to London but it was so surreal to actually be experiencing it. Luckily you wife's family was in London visiting us so they got to come to the show and see me. It was so great, we got a great reception from the crowd and so many compliments. I even got complimented on my little travel guitar. Up there on the stage looking over the people that had come to hear us play and knowing I had reached my goal and could truly consider myself not only a musician but a lead guitarist in a working band was amazing and I will never forget it.
