Yacht Rock was supposed to play a pair of gigs yesterday--the Sandy Springs Festival and Jazzoo at the zoo (duh).
The Sandy Springs gig got rained out. We showed up and it was pouring. Then the rain stopped. It's on, we thought. As we were loading our stuff on to a golf cart to take into the festival, the golf cart driver got a message that the gig had been canceled. So...back in the truck! We walked over to the stage to see what we would be missing. Twas a nice little ampitheater in Sandy Springs. By the time we got back to our vehicles, the rain was coming again, so I drove home in the rain. It kept raining for a few more hours.
Two nice things about that gig getting cancelled: 1. We still got paid. 2. The squeeze of trying to pack up, sprint to the zoo, and set up again was eliminated. Instead, I went home and ate supper, and then left around 6 PM.
I loaded into the zoo around 6:30. It was still raining, but miraculously we were able to drive through the back of the tent and unload there. How sweet was that! Very sweet, I tell you.
The crowd was thick at the Jazzoo. Lots of rowdy drunk people, probably due to the free alcohol samples at the different booths within the tent. It was a good gig, though. The stage was high enough to keep them at bay.
The sound was weird on stage. You know those gigs where it seems like you can't hear your amp well, and you keep bumping the volume up, but you never really get anywhere until it's wide open? It was one of those--probably because we were in a tent with an asphalt floor, and no wall behind the stage (just a drape). Eventually, I got to where I could hear my monitor, but if I stepped away from it, I heard nothing. This proved to be no fun when it came time for Taking it to the Streets. Trying to play when it felt like I was un-miced caused me to overblow and get tired. On Baker Street it was a little easier because the alto is easier to hear. I don't know why--could be that it cuts a little more, could be because it's higher, could be because the bell is closer. I don't know.
I went back (beginning this past Thursday) to an older alto mouthpiece of mine that is a little less open. I was playing on a wide open piece and it sounded great when I was jamming a ton of air into it, but it wore me out. The older piece is a little more closed, and I can get the same sound without feeling with less effort. I'm going to have the open mouthpiece refaced to see if I can bring it down to something I can get more use out of.
When we were playing Baker Street, Mark Dannells was playing a rippin' guitar solo with one foot on the monitor. Dannells always does this--it's his standard guitar hero move. Towards the end of his solo, he must have shifted his weight onto it because it slipped out from under him. He fell flat on his back, but amazingly NEVER MISSED A NOTE! That guy is awesome.
Speaking of awesome, Mark Cobb was once again on fire. He is really sharp right now. Mark's so creative that even though we're playing the same songs night to night, I can hear within the beat what he's thinking about (musically) on a given night. The fills turn into a question--"Do you hear me? Do you hear what I'm telling you?" You know it. Mark Cobb is driving the band right now.
One crappy thing--the drum set was a rental, and we used the part of one of my gig bags to deaden the bass drum. As soon as the gig ended, the rental guys jumped on stage, grabbed the drumset and ran out the door. It's going to take a couple of days to see if I can get my stuff back. Argghhh! I brought my EWI home wrapped in my t shirt.
I'm playing my parts, particularly the keyboard stuff, with a feeling that the end is near. Kind of like the tour is almost over. It'll definitely improve the band to have two full time keyboardists, but I'll miss the challenge, and I think it'll feel really weird to go back to doing almost nothing on alot of these songs. Nobody's said exactly how it'll all shake out. We'll see.
