Friday: we played a private party at The Bridge Building, just across the river from downtown. Super cool venue that's only been open for a couple of weeks.
The room where we played was an acoustical nightmare. We were surrounded by floor to ceiling windows in a two story box with exposed I-beams and a concrete floor. Needless to say, it was loud and washy. Looked great, sounded not so great.
The attendees made this gig look like a Carrie Underwood look alike contest. What do they put in the water to make all of the women blonde?
Speaking of which, this gig created a new rule for me, effective immediately: NOT UNLESS SHE'S TOPLESS. Some dude requested Hey 19, and we obliged him. While we were playing, he then tried repeatedly to get his date to get on stage and stand next to me while I was playing for a picture, like I'm the Wille B statue at the zoo or something. Really, dude--not unless she's topless.
Saturday: we played the Mercy Lounge again. Great venue, and the crowd is always enthusiastic. I like playing here much more than downstairs in the larger room (the Cannery Ballroom). For this particular evening, we played our holiday show, with roughly the same setlist as the previous week at the Variety Playhouse. The horn section for this was Dennie Kirtley (trumpet), Michael Guitierrez (tenor sax), and Diego Vasquez (trombone).
Another great show here! The playing was good, the crowd was great. Here's a video of Africa:
How about some more lighting for the guys outside of the posts? Bencuya and I are in the dark!
People in the audience started asking for Baker Street late in the first set, and by the time we finished our show, it had grown to a full voice chant! Pretty cool. We gave it to them as the first song of the encore. All Night Long finished out the night.
Sunday: we were up and out of town at a decent hour. I got home, changed, swapped gear, and ran out the door to my church gigs--both evening services.
Church gig number one was pretty good. It's mostly Christmas carols at this time of year, so no big deal. The band and choir were joined by a guest soloist from Veritas--a pretty awesome tenor (the guy right in the middle of the picture). The service ended with candlelight and Silent Night. Always cool.
Church gig number two was also pretty good, though the congregation was so thin, it looked like Super Bowl Sunday. We played pretty well. The lineup was two vocalists, piano, and me.
I'm wringing a couple of more gigs out of this holiday season, and then it'll be time for a break!
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