Today the band had their first rehearsal, with out Uli. He doesn't arrive to SoCal till tomorrow, and with the NAMM convention, it would be difficult to coordinate any other rehearsal before Monday's.
The drummer, Glen Sobel, you may know is my regular drummer for my own gigs, and as always was uber-prepared, and luckily our notes/charts seemed to line up. This, however, is the first time meeting, let alone playing with Bjorn Englen, the bassist for these dates. Bjorn has been Yngwie Malmsteen's bassist for the last 4-5 years and has a strong feel for the tunes. Mark Boals, of course, also known from Yngwie's classic "Trilogy" album and others, was on hand for vocals.
Comedy ensued as Mark kept asking whether I would sing backup/harmony parts for every Scorpions song we ran through... I obliged with mixed results though better than I (and I hope the others) expected.
Overall we did pretty well, and it sounded rather tight. What you would expect from seasoned musicians, I guess.
These SoCal tour dates will feature a number of classic Scorpions songs, some Jimi Hendrix, and a couple Electric Sun tracks.
On Monday, we rehearse with Uli.
Oh yeah, the band seemed to agree that "Enola Gay (Hiroshima Today)" was the most difficult song to learn and rehearse due to a variety of various versions as a reference, some non-de-script parts, as well as the fact that we are playing it a half step lower than normal on guitars that are already tuned down to E flat.
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