Last Friday, after months of planning and writing and rehearsing, we put on our big Triple Click live show at the Alberta Rose Theatre. It was so great.
Not only did we pack the place, we packed the place with friendly, supportive people who were absolutely and entirely there to have a good time. I have never played music for a crowd quite like that before, and it was a hell of an experience.
You can listen to the first half of the show in the Triple Click main feed. The two-hour uncut version—complete with songs, audience games, sax solos, and more—is in the MaxFun Bonus Feed for members. So basically, you can sample for free, and for $5, you can get a “ticket” to hear the whole thing. Not a bad deal if you ask me!
This was my first big show in Portland after living here more than 10 years. Even more than that, it was my first time planning and producing a big show of my own material since… I don’t know, man. A long time. It was a big deal for me in ways that I’m still processing. I’m glad we hired Miri to take photos of the night, just so I can have some evidence that it all really happened.
Some stray thoughts on the show:
My comfort with my musical instruments and equipment is on a different level compared with the last time I put on a show like this. I know how all my gear works, and I was able to assemble a purpose-built setup that made the show and rehearsals a lot easier to pull off. Specifically…
My Helix floor unit acquitted itself well, as did my stinky amp. My guitar tone felt more under my control than it ever has, and the Helix’s built-in looper, despite its limited functionality, was good enough that I was able to undo a weird pass on the fly without having to restart the loop. (Why do I keep deciding to open shows with elaborate solo loops? A good question.) I’m very interested in Line 6’s upcoming Stadium refresh of the Helix line, and have some specific performance needs that I’m hoping it will meet.
Maddy used my recently acquired Nord Stage 3 keyboard, and that is one hell of an instrument. The overall UX is exactly right—wholly separate zones for organ, piano, and synth, with intuitive switching and blending. Effects are also a cinch to implement. And it sounds fantastic. I can see why so many working keyboard players use these.
The night’s gear MVP was actually… my guitar stand? It’s a Hercules tri-guitar stand, and we used it for both my electric and my acoustic, which Jason was playing. I also attached an iPad holder to the middle bar, AND a little clip-on table to hold the iPad audio interface, my capos, tuner, and extra picks. It was basically a little on-stage control tower. I may never again perform without it.
I used the “Soundboard Studio” app for all of the iPad sounds I triggered, and was impressed by how versatile it was. I was able to trigger synths and drum loops, the Triple Click theme song, and even a silly game show sound effect. It’s one of those apps that does exactly what it needs to and nothing extra. Which I’m sure means they’re about to discontinue it.
Maddy sang and played beautifully, and I had a great time working out a guitar part and vocal harmonies for her song, “Solitary Job.” I hope a bunch of new people will check out her music.
For the audience participation games, Emily made us a four-segment game show wheel out of junk we had laying around the house. We spun it to pick categories. It was very homemade, and that was so much better than if we’d bought a pre-fab one.
Moose, the venue manager, helped me procure the wooden table you can see in front of us during the seated chat segments of the show. It was upstairs in the second green room, and I just really felt like we needed a table or something there? I think it looks great. Also, Moose is the best.
I kinda wish we could have had some plants over there in the chat area. Next time.
Instead of having people line up at the mic to ask questions, we collected written questions ahead of time and read them out on stage. This is a much better way of doing audience participation IMO!
One person asked about the podcast production process, which let me sit on a stage in front of hundreds of people and talk about podcast editing. Truly, the dream. Related to that, it’s always striking how completely different recording a live podcast from recording one over Zoom. Our show isn’t normally such a comedy routine.
Editing a live podcast, meanwhile, is actually pretty easy. Because of all the cross-talk and mic bleed, you can’t actually do too much once you sit down with it in the studio. It’s more about trimming out silences and speeding up transitions.
After the show, the venue gave us a multi-track Logic session with every individual instrument already separated out. That gave me a ton of flexibility when it came to mixing the music, and I’m happy with how the songs sound in the final mix. We’ve come a long way from the days of plugging a minidisc recorder into the board and hoping for the best.
The crowd sang along with my sax rendition of the Halo theme, and a surprising number of them also knew the words to our closing song, “Still Alive.” I did not realize so many people had that one memorized. That song has a lot of words!
The on-stage monitor mix was very good, but I was reminded of how easy it is to lose track of your own voice amid the hyped acoustic environment of a stage. As I begin to conceptualize a Strong Songs live show, I do think I want to put together a complete in-ear setup with personalized mixes.
I was glad we did a longer show with an intermission. Our past live shows have been an hour with no break, and they went by so fast it was difficult to even register that they were happening. This longer show took more work, but it was at least possible to slow down for a few moments, look around, and say, “hey, this is happening.”
I couldn’t have asked for a better night. Thanks to Maddy and Jason for letting me talk them into doing all this extra stuff when we could have just sat on stage and chatted, and thanks to everyone at the Alberta Rose Theatre for making it all so easy for us. Biggest thanks of all to everyone who bought a ticket and came out.
Next up: Strong Songs Live. Next year, same venue? Sounds like a plan to me.
Strong Songs Season Finale: Just Call On Me, Brother
Friday also marked the end of Strong Songs Season Seven (it was a big day!). I closed the season out with an episode about “Lean On Me” by Bill Withers.
I've been looking forward to talking about Bill on the show for a long time, and realized early in planning the season out that he'd make for a great finale. This season has had its share of elaborate, technical breakdowns of elaborate, technical music, but I didn't want to lose sight of the fact that many of the best songs are also the simplest. So who better to end with than Withers, a songwriter who embodied that ethos in both his music and his life.
I'm so proud of this season, and I hope you've all enjoyed it as much as I've enjoyed making it. Season Seven represents ten new hours of Strong Songs, and while ten hours of podcasting may not seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things, it represents months of work on my part.
I’ve got a handful of interviews planned to run over the summer as I begin work on Season Eight. As always, people who support the show on Patreon will get everything two weeks early. I’m taking a short break before I start all that up, so in the meantime, go catch up on any episodes you may have missed!
Onward
That’ll do it for now. I have been going hard for the past few months and am going to try to relax for a while. I hope you’re all able to do the same. As always, you can find me on Instagram and Bluesky, posting whenever I don’t think better of it.
I’ll leave you with this pic of Appa, who likes to stand both in and out of the screen door, just so she can be ready for anything.
Take care and keep listening -~KH7/18/2025