Friday: Yacht Rock returned to Nashville. We've been selling out the Mercy Lounge the past couple of times, so we moved downstairs to the larger part of the venue: the Cannery Ballroom (the Mercy is about the size of Smith's Olde Bar, and the Cannery is about the size of the Variety Playhouse). Cool. We loaded in, set up, soundchecked…usual stuff. Definitely a bigger, better stage. The room is L shaped.
Before the gig, we ate at a Thai food truck around the corner. I had the red curry with pork. Very good. I could have eaten two.
The gig went pretty well. We played I Keep Forgetting, one of my faves, and we went through a string of fun sax features (Whatever Gets You Through the Night, Your Mama Don't Dance, Careless Whisper, and Baker Street). The crowd was pretty into it. Coming back from the intermission, the vibe changed--I don't think the we ever got to the same shared energy with the audience.
Some turd got on stage at the end of the night, but the monitor guy was quick to launch him back into the audience. Also, Greg Lee yelled at some jackass in a panama hat at the front of the stage, who responded by throwing twenty dollar bills at us. Alcohol...
My tenor reed died, and thus my altissimo. It made the F#s at the top of the Who Can it Be Now? lick almost impossible. My batting average for that note in the song was low enough to get me sent to the minors.
Saturday: We spent the night in Smyrna--no hotel rooms were available in Nashville. We got on the road a little bit late.
Bencuya drove away from a gas pump with the hose still in the side of the van, but we suffered no damage (the gas hose took the brunt of it). Oops.
Chattanooga has a nice place to stop for lunch--the 212 Market. Good stuff. I had ravioli.
We rolled into Atlanta and went straight to our next gig--a spring party at the Atlanta Athletic Club. They had a tented stage set up in their tennis stadium. Not a bad place for a gig! The only drag was that the sun was blazing on my corner of the stage--it cooked me and my equipment.
This gig was ok. I was tired, I guess, but I just couldn't really get into it, and the stage sound kind of crushed any enthusiasm I had. The front line monitors had a lot of stuff in them, and each wedge was cranked to the point of feeding back.
Some drunk bitch (it's always going to be a female, isn't it?) decided that we needed a chick in the band, so she invited herself on stage. At first I thought she wanted to play cowbell or tambourine, but nobody would give in to her, so she just stood in the corner. I got a quick picture during Footloose. I wish we'd had the monitor guy from Nashville come and throw her off the stage.
She spent about a half hour after the gig going among the band, trying to convince us to add her on, though we were never able to determine what exactly she could do. Loading out gear was definitely not on her list of talents. Drinking our rider, perhaps?
Also at the end of the night was a pushy lady who demanded to hear Brick House (which we don't play). I hope at some point we no longer have to deal with stuff like this. It really kills gigs when you have a handful of people who want to tell you what you should be doing.
I got home, unpacked my gear and clothes, packed my stuff my my church gig, took a shower and got in bed at 4 AM.
Sunday: Two hours later, I was up and trying to get out the door to go to Cumming, GA for a church gig. Bryan Lopes and I played the same song we'd played at Gwinnett Church a few weeks ago. This one was at Browns Bridge.
Easy stuff (one song in each of the services), and we got to hang out. Wayne Viar was playing drums, so the three of us traded stories. The song went fine, but spending time with two of my favorite people was extra cool.
Home, then straight to bed. I got up and made my second church gig. Kind of a light band--three vocalists. It was a little rough sounding, compared to the previous week. I didn't anything worth talking about.
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