Not much else to say about the Concert For Peder.....

... except it was an honor, privilege, and a helluva lot of fun to be a part of it. The Rockhaus Guitars' Rusty Olson did a stellar job putting it all together. As my day job is that of a project manager, I truly appreciate the thoughtful planning, thorough organizing, and flawless execution Rusty put in to raise a boatload of $$$ for a very deserving cause. The night ran like clockwork. It also helps that everybody involved behaved like the seasoned pros that they are: there was no diva behavior, no whining, people just plugged in and played their hearts out to the warmest (both emotionally and physically) room I've been in in a while. The Shepherd's Jamie Lee Rake summarized the performances wonderfully here. 

One thing that really underscores what a terrific songwriter Peder was, is how deceptively simple his songs sounded. I was part of a group (along with Bill Backes, Betty Blexrud-Strigens, Keith Brammer, Damien Strigens and Dale Kaminski) that covered two songs, both of which were "simple" three chord rounds. We did "Oh Louise" and the second one, "Freight Train Home" at first blush is a standard I-IV-V rock and roll blues wail. Not quite. Where the song comes in, where it breaks, where the verse comes in, where it stops dead -- none of these things come where you expect them to come. It took me four pages to just write the whole damn thing out so I could practice it:
Betty had a better, less unwieldy way to note it out. She used emojis! 

Well, as I was onstage, our portion was one of the few parts that I did not capture on digital film. Here's the rest of the night as I saw it: 




The Peder Hedman Orchestra

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