House of Blues, Orlando

Yacht Rock played Monday night at the House of Blues in Orlando.  It was a very cool gig.  Playing a gig in a room like that makes feel like a legitimately pro musician in a way that playing in hotel ballrooms can never equal.  Even though it was a private event, the sound crew was very cool and very professional, and they know that they are there to help you kick ass.  They will try to give you what you want, be it your own monitor mix, help setting up your gear, whatever.  It's really cool--I mean, most of my gigs, we're treated like servers, so to have a almost a personal assistant was neat (and weird--I'm so used to doing stuff on my own, it's hard to remember to expect someone else to do the heavy lifting!).

Cobb, Bencuya, and Nick in the limo

Going back to Orlando itself was a flash flood of emotions, even though we were on the opposite side of town from where I grew up.  I lived in the northern suburbs of Longwood and Altamonte Springs from sixth grade til high school graduation (except for six months in Miami), and just walking out the front door of the airport brought it all back.  I never felt like a Central Floridian more than when I got there that morning.  It felt like home.

The gig itself was cool.  We flew out of Atlanta at 8 AM;  we were in Florida around 10 AM.  We ate and hung around "Downtown Disney."  Around 2:30 PM I took a cab to the venue and began the process setting up my real estate and finding sounds on the rental keyboard.  We soundchecked.  Everything was fine.  The only drag was that Bencuya and I were using rented amplifiers (Roland KC500), and they sounded really bad--thin and harsh.  I missed my Mackie stuff.  Why doesn't Mackie make keyboard amplifiers?  I wish we'd paid somebody to drive all our gear down the day before instead of renting it.  I hate rental gear.

Mark Dannells opened his bag to find that TSA had removed his guitar cables and guitar strap.  We can only assume they forgot to return them.

Playing the gig was really neat, like I said, because it's a real stage with a real sound crew.  The Flaming Lips had been there a few weeks earlier.  I believe The Who had played there at some point.  I was playing back at my station, keeping my volume kind of low because the amp sounded so bad.  Usually no one wants to hear me anywhere else on stage, and I've kind of given up getting mad about it (the monitor guy actually said something about it to me, and I replied "They kind of ignore me, and I kind of ignore them, and it's fine").  So, we got to Silly Love Songs and Nick was back at my spot playing piano and I was on the front line, and that's when I found out that my keyboards were REALLY loud in the side fills!  Oh crap!  That made me kind of tense...better watch what I was playing!

Here's a video Ganesh took of us from the dressing room, performing Coming Up.  That's me down the lower right hand corner playing EWI.  All those years of marching band, finally put to good use.

Other than that, it was usual Yacht Rock.  No big deal.  They loved us.  Afterwards, we went out for pictures and multiple women asked to pull on my mustache and verify its authenticity.  One lady asked if my hair was real (I put my hand on her head and said, "No--is yours?").  More than one woman jammed her hand in my shirt to feel my chest hair.  Weird weirdness.  A couple of women put their hands in the pockets of some of the other guys.

Bencuya had a woman talking to him mention she was from Columbus, Ohio.  He said, "I'm from Ann Arbor, Michigan," and she walked away.  Yes!

dressing room

I packed up my horns and computer and we all changed clothes.  Somebody stole Mark Cobb's iPod from the front of house desk, so we waited around to see what could be done about it (the House of Blues basically said too bad--I'm not sure how they can avoid responsibility for it.  If a light had fallen and crushed one of my saxophones, would they have said "You shouldn't have put it there"?).

my room

the shower

Mark Dannells!

almost home

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