Friday, I played with the Yacht Rock Schooner at the Wild Wing in Alpharetta. It was a pretty decent gig. I shook hands with the same drunk guy after nearly every song in the first set. He couldn't get enough, I guess. I felt like I was running for mayor.
The band did ok. I would not say it was our finest performance. First, a word about the monitor. I was sharing a wedge with the stage left keyboards and the bass, both of whom sing. For some reason, both decided to put their instruments into it as well, as well as a general mix of the other vocals on stage. By the time we began playing, the monitor mix was terrible--too much crap in it, turned all the way up, and guess who was directly in front of it. Great. I was neither pleased nor impressed with the choices made there. If I'm not mistaken, Mr. Bassist and Mr. Keyboardist, that's why you have lugged an amplifier to this event.
Kevin Spencer was not available as a vocalist for this gig, so we had a guest vocalist fill in. She sang very well! In time, I think she'll figure out how to fit in with the group--the vocal gymnastics (a la Mariah Carey) were not necessary. That said, she did great--she looked the part and helped out with the harmonies.
Every tempo in the first half of the set was quick. I think Daniel uses a metronome, so I'm probably not used to the original tempo anymore, but it felt like we were flying through songs. Midway through, Ganesh finally said something about it. Unfortunately, it shifted everything down so much that the gig nearly came to a stop (probably not, but it felt like we'd strapped on weights). A few times it felt like the bass was out in front of the drums, time-wise. Things felt weird.
Saturday, the Yacht Rock Revue played a gig at Barnsley Gardens in Adairsville, Georgia for a very expensive birthday party. All in all, it went pretty well. We originally were set up on the front porch of the museum next to the ruins, but around 10:20 PM the rain came and washed us all away. We regrouped at another location (indoors) and finished the gig.
This gig was recorded and videotaped. I don't know why that makes me nervous, but everything was really tight--it's hard to play when I'm thinking about how my performance will be scrutinized. Every wrong note set off alarms in my head that someone down the line would be listening later, and I wouldn't be there to provide an excuse. I'm sure the video will capture me concentrating like I was taking the SAT, not looking cool and excited about what I was doing.
Alyssa Olson came and sang a few songs with us. She did extremely well. We debuted You're No Good last night, and she nailed it.
When we reset indoors, we were unable to bring the PA (or most of our gear), so we did a Yacht Rock acoustic set--one keyboard (instead of our usual four), bass, acoustic guitar, electric guitar (with no amp), one vocal microphone, and one saxophone. We ran all of that through my little mixer into my powered speaker. Not bad a bad little gig! The crowd loved it. The video was once again rolling, but this one didn't scare me as much, for some reason. Maybe I was just too busy trying to boil all my parts down and apply them to saxophone.
I have a couple of gigs this evening, and then a few more charts to crank out before tomorrow morning's rehearsal. A big week awaits, with two shows at the Variety Playhouse this weekend.
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