Before the night of June 24, 2004, it had literally been twelve years since I'd "led" a concert of any kind—and that concert was actually my senior recital at Berklee College of Music. Since then I'd settled comfortably into the role of sideman for a variety of people predisposed to attract the spotlight—Mike Keneally, Steve Vai, Wayne Kramer, Dweezil Zappa, whoever—and that suited me just fine. If I'd wanted to stand at the front of the stage I would have been learning guitar solos in high school instead of John Paul Jones' bass lines, and I probably would have been taller and thinner as well.

So you can imagine the kind of nerves and wariness with which I approached the debut live gig of the Bryan Beller Band, or whatever you want to call it (I literally have no idea what to name it), at the world-famous Baked Potato jazz club in Los Angeles, CA.

Fortunately for me, I had a dream band backing me up: Rick Musallam and Griff Peters on guitar, Mike Keneally on guitar and keyboards, Joe Travers on drums, Wes Wehmiller on additional bass, and special guest Colin Keenan. It was essentially the core View lineup, and that was a good thing, because the set consisted of every track from View. In sequence. (Exception: "Eighteen Weeks" was left out and replaced by a John Scofield tune called "Blackout.")

All my self-doubts aside, it really did come off splendidly. The crowd was intensely enthusiastic and we proved that the material really could be pulled off live, and with aplomb at that. It was a bitch to organize, though, and one of the things I forgot to handle ahead of time was to have someone specifically charged with getting pictures of the show. Fortunately for us, a wonderful lady named Jackie Daum, who was sitting in the back row with a digital camera, took it upon herself to snap a few shots amidst the oh-so-red stage lighting that pervaded the Potato vibe. Major props to her, else there would have been scant, if any, photographic documentation of this first-of-its-kind event.

Mike Keneally and I, in our familiar acoustic duo format, getting the crowd in shape for whatever was to come afterwards. I called it "the feast before the slaughter." We were later joined by Joe Travers for an acoustic/electric edition of "Inca Roads."

 

Yours truly, in the opening moments of the first solo gig I'd ever done, trying to keep my fingers on the fretboard during the extended live arrangement of "Bear Divide."

 

Rick Musallam takes center stage for the first band tune of the night, the dense and cacophonous "Seven Percent Grade," during which I spend a considerable amount of time staring at my left hand. To his left is Griff Peters, featured soloist on the tunes "Get Things Done" and "View."

 

A tough picture to get under the circumstances, but the only one of the unusual lineup for "Bite." From left to right: Griff Peters (on the orange baritone guitar), Mike Keneally (standing and singing background vocals), Rick Musallam (who is completely obscuring drummer Joe Travers directly behind him), lead singer Colin Keenan (who is almost totally obscuring me), and in the dark, Wes Wehmiller (also on background vocals, and in this case, songwriting). Colin's typically sardonic take on the tune before it began: "You guys have View, right? This is the tune you skip over."