Sound-checking ‘Solid Rock’ at Airlie Beach Festival Of Music back in 2021...

Sound-checking ‘Solid Rock’ at Airlie Beach Festival Of Music back in 2021 without Shane Howard who got stuck in Melbourne due to a Covid lockdown. We ended up doing it without him unfortunately.

I was asked a few times about this intro as it differs from the original drum track and there’s more than meets the eye and ear going on here. It’s all in the hands.

Opposing rhythms and dynamics between the hands give the ‘groove’ its’ rhythmic depth with the left hand orchestrating around the toms (replicated every eight bars-not random). The two-handed floor-tom accents at the end of each four bars differ as the 1st group are done in unison with the 2nd played as flams, creating the sonic/timbral variation on top of the hi-hat and bass drum 4-beat crotchet ostinato (that’s the easy part).