Saturday evening, the Yacht Rock Revue played a birthday party in Buckhead for world famous author Emily Giffin (ask your wife). Awesome house (and I never even made it into the actual house!). A couple of acres of wooded property with a garden, pool, pool house/office. It was beautiful.
The stage sloped 18 degrees to the rear (as my level app told me). It might not seem that bad, but when you spend a couple of hours leaning to the right, it gets a little uncomfortable. I guess the stage builder did not think it was a big deal.
 |
| you can see the slope of the tent, dance floor, and stage |
As far as parties go, it was about what you'd expect. We played two sets--the first to almost no one, the second to a pretty good crowd, and then they didn't want us to stop.
I got home around 1:30 AM, packed some more clothes, and took a two hour nap.
A little after 4 AM, I got up, drank a cup of coffee, and headed downtown to play at the Georgia Marathon. We were told to load in by 5:30 because of the traffic. We played on a stage in the middle part of the park, right next to the Embassy Suites. It seemed like it shouldn't be a big deal--there's a street right there, so we'd pull up, dump our gear, park in our designated spot, play the gig, come back, and get out. No such luck.
First of all, all the streets around there were blocked by 5 AM. You couldn't get remotely close to the park. At every intersection, there were one or two Atlanta police officers, and you basically had to keep driving around until you found one who was reasonable enough to let you through to get to the park. The vast majority of them didn't know or care about a band, and would just tell you they weren't letting you in and you should try the next block over, which was a pain in itself because of the one way streets. One cop refused to let Peter through a roadblock because he was "whining like a little man." That's what were dealing with.
We finally got near the stage and dropped all of our equipment off. The officer on that street wouldn't let us leave our vehicles there, but the designated parking lot for us was on the other side of the park--trying to get back through all the roadblocks and one way streets would have taken forever. Our policeman told us to park in the green lot at the World Congress Center--"that's where they're staging vehicles." We drove over there, but they wouldn't let us in, so we had to make a U turn out of there and head out towards the other side of the park. I ended up parking in front of the W Hotel downtown, a number of blocks away, and I had to pay $10. Thanks.
I made my way back across downtown and set my gear up on the well pollenated stage. Goody.
Two guys in the band overslept and missed the load in time, so the rest of us walked to the Aquarium (where they'd ended up parking) and ferried their gear to the stage. It ended up being no big deal--we still had plenty of time (and they ended up parking closer than I did).
We played the gig--three sets. Daylight gradually found us. The pollen covered us. I can't really think of how we played. I guess it was fine. I hate to say it didn't matter, but it didn't matter.
By the third set, I was really miserable. The pollen was in my eyes, so I played with one or the other clamped shut. I was hurting and tired as hell. The gig ended at 12:30 PM, and we quickly loaded off the stage.
I walked back to pick up my truck, and then drove around Atlanta trying to find my way back to the stage--I came out of the parking lot the wrong way, and ended up driving around the Georgia Dome and the World Congress Center (touring Northside Drive) before I could crack the APD defenses surrounding the park. When I got back to the stage, no one was there from the band, but my gear was still piled up on the sidewalk. I loaded up my stuff and drove home.
At home, I took all of my gear out of my truck and wiped down cases, cables, stands, and instruments with damp towels to clean off as much pollen as I could before putting it all away.
I slept or a few hours (with an assist from Benedryl), then got up, took a shower, and played my evening church gig. I couldn't play for shit, but I looked good.
I was in bed by 8:30 PM. Hibernate!
davidfreemanmusic.net
