Friday's show was with the Yacht Rock Schooner in Chattanooga at Rhythm and Brews. I just played saxes and flute, so it was a pretty easy night. The band sounded good; everything was solid, and it was nice to kind of have the night off on a gig. I probably did more cell phone videos than actual playing!
Saturday afternoon was a Yacht Rock Revue gig at Eagles Landing in Stockbridge. What a disaster! The van was late in arriving to grab our gear, and then it took us twice as long as was allocated to pack the trailer. We then moved our cars over to the Pleaserock office so as to avoid returning to smashed car windows. Once we got on the interstate, we decided to take 75 south instead of 675 south (which was what my phone kept telling me to do), and somewhere in there I recalculated directions to Stockbridge instead of Eagles Landing. So…we got off the interstate at the wrong exit before I noticed. Back on the interstate, down 75 another few miles. We got there with a little over and hour to get our gear in the room and soundcheck. Somehow, we finished with five minutes to spare!
Dig the curtain behind us. It looked just like the Hot for Teacher video. I couldn't stop thinking about that for the first couple of songs.
It just got worse from there. We had to kill off two and a half hours in our green room until our stuff was scheduled to be begin. The gig was a total drag. The room was pitch black, and with sunglasses on it seemed like we were playing inside Space Mountain, and after how many beers in those few hours I thought I was going to fall off the edge. The crowd was really stiff, and we got bored and then we had to drag ourselves to the bitter end.
Here's audio from the night. I recorded with my phone, sitting on one of my keyboards, so the balance is weird (right in between my amp, the guitar amp, and the drums). Check the cowbell duel. "Africa is percussive."
That's me on the solo--a bit of EWI magic.
Somebody cut the last chorus short. You can hear me yell "What the fuck!" and then Dannells and I chattering about it.
Africa (Toto): Yacht Rock Revue by David B Freeman
The theme for the party was James Bond (hence the "Octopussy" in the audio), so we played a little bit of Live and Let Die off the cuff. That went pretty well. Our other thing was the James Bond ending, which did not go well at all. We were going to do it in F minor, and I figured it out on EWI (which I have set to Bb). Unfortunately, the couple of times it was audibled, I was either playing keyboards, flute, or alto--never tenor or EWI, and my brain couldn't quite move the lick into another key! Actually, I think the time I did try to play it, Dannells was playing it in E minor, so even when I was finally right, I was still wrong.
We loaded the gear back out, and then the van wouldn't start because we were parked on a hill and the tank was almost empty. Greg and Ganesh left to find a gas station that was open and buy a gallon of gas. We packed the gear up, put some gas in the van, and drove home. When we got back to town, we went and picked up our cars at the office, and then caravanned to the rehearsal space, which turned out to be our only good move of the night. The gate for the space was locked and nobody had the key, so then we pulled our personal gear out of the trailer and went our separate ways (which meant somebody had to be responsible for the PA in the trailer and then deal with it again the next day).
Sunday began just hours later. I played church gig number one in a fog. It went pretty well. No big surprises. I went home, took a nap, got up and hung out with Jack. I took another nap. I got up and went to church gig number two. No problems. I think I had a pretty good mix happening. I came home and immediately/accidentally fell asleep, and woke up twelve hours later.
Another week cometh!
davidfreemanmusic.net
