Last week an old musical pal called me to give him a hand at an open stage event on Sunday. We've hosted lots of open stages doing the warm-up and closing sets and helping folks in between. I like doing these so I didn't give it much thought. "Sure! I'm in". But I blanched when he told me that where it was - well over an hour's drive and not a fun drive at that.

So I arrive at the appointed time, 7:00 pm. It is in a recently renovated entertainment complex, a restaurant, lounge, nightclub and pub all in one building. The open stage event is in the restaurant.

The stage is pretty much setup with conventional gear with an empty spot for my L1® just slightly off-centre at the back of the stage. A couple of minutes later I'm ready to go. There seems to be a lot of interest in my L1® and the T1®. Fellows from the audience come up and ask about it and remark on the quick setup and absence of speaker wires and "Don't you need to do a sound check with the other guys?" and you probably know all the questions I am hearing at this point. What is odd is the number of people  that are interested.

I pause to survey the audience. There are a lot of people that could be "Dads" and a lot of people who could be their kids with their "Moms". Then I remember - It is Fathers' Day.

A couple of minutes later we are into our opening set. I look around and things seem oddly familiar with my old musical pal on one side and ... Oh yeah, I remember the Drummer - we were in a band together years ago. Okay cool. The Bassist and the vocalist are new to me but we're all having fun.

Now we start inviting the open stage guests to come to the stage. To my surprise and delight, most of them are under five feet tall. Then it all falls together as I recall that the Drummer has a studio and a Drum school. The vocalist and one of the other Guitarists also teach in that studio. This is stage night for the students. The rest of us old guys are the backup band for a parade of fledgling Drummers and Guitarists and singers.

I now understand all the interest in the L1®. Those guys were the Dads who were thinking about gear for their kids.

Hey! It was a great night, and in some respects more fun than I've had in a very long time. I'll be back.

Within a few months it was clear that this new system was going to extend my time playing by at least a decade. Four years into that decade I am more optimistic than ever.   Today I did a show and it was as though the clock on the time remaining was reset.

Some milestones.

The L1® Encyclopedia, FAQ and wiki (previously the  Unofficial Bose L1™ Wiki) will be two years live in  August.  Earlier this year the traffic had overcome the bandwidth to my server so I moved it to an external hosting service. Today it  has over 350 articles, 600 illustrations and images, there have been 364,000 page views. and it is seeing 200-400 unique visits per day split nearly 60/40 with new and returning visitors.

Bose announced the L1®  Model II and the T1 ToneMatch® Audio Engine at the end of March 2007. Most of the 150 new articles in the wiki have been related to those products, and there have been hundreds of revisions to the existing pages as our understanding of the L1® (all models) continues to mature.

The Sketcher has been stable, and the revisions from last year have served us well. You can read The Sketcher chronicles for more details.

A year ago I posted some numbers.
Here is the update:

The conversations on the Bose Musicians Message Board continue to be about the L1® system, but while that remains the reason that many visit for the first time, there are those that return to talk about raising the state of the art.

At the L1® conference in North Carolina I asked why people continue to visit the message board after they have asked and had their questions answered.  In answer to "Why do you come back?" these were some of the responses.

• To learn.
• So much good information.
• It may be hard to understand the L1 System at first, but people get answers to those questions on this forum.
• People share their own experience; you hear (read about) others who have similar situations to your own.
• So much information ... related to, but well beyond just the L1 System (such as about music career, how do present yourself in a performance, about microphones, guitars, room acoustics, ...)
• Learn more by accident than I know what to ask.
• Learn by watching how others answers questions.
• Not a high number of 'idiots' posting -- even questions that have been asked before are treated with respect ... the recognition that this is a new question for that person.
• Learn new ideas.
• Negative postings ARE posted, not deleted.
• I come back because I learn.
• I like to help.
• I like to answer questions. It's like teaching.
• I feel like owe something back to the others for the help I've gotten.
• The moderators and key others have established a 'forum of respect'.
• A sense of creating something more than simply an understanding or pushing of a commercial product.
• A means of helping others solve a "little problem" so they can "move on" to something more important -- like making music.
• I'm aware that for ever posting there are ~400 people "watching". So I know the answer I may have to contribute may have ongoing value; so taking time to answer one person's question will potentially have value beyond just that person -- and that answer will persist over time (particularly in the Wiki).
• I'm a teacher at heart; I like to help others learn. By doing my part to help create an atmosphere of openness and sharing of knowledge in this on-line form, I have an opportunity to contribute to many more than I could ever do in person, or in a classroom.
• It is a means, in some small way, to join with other like-minded folks to help co-create a 'different' future ... perhaps related to music ... perhaps in other ways. I can only do that by exposing who I am and the way I think and understand and struggle to communicate that understanding with you and to seek to understand your viewpoint. -- and I can take time to really think about it, much more easily (for me) than in 'live dialog'.

 I am still honoured to be a member of this community.