Hey…it's Monday again! Another weekend has blown past.
Thursday: Yacht Rock played at the Georgia Theatre for Halloween, performing all of Michael Jackson's Thriller and then a set of 70s/80s stuff.
We wore the Ghostbusters outfits for Thriller.
Oops! As we walked on stage, I noticed that my stack of charts had been blown onto the floor by the air conditioner. Aaaaagh! I think I could probably make it through the album without them, but I like the short term memory bump. Thankfully, there were enough 10 second spaces in the first few songs that I gradually got them back in order.
I actually played a really good sax solo on Lady in My Life for the first time in years.
The Yacht Rock set was our usual stuff. We've been playing Kiss You All Over and Love Will Keep Us Together, both of which I enjoy playing (though I bombed the solo for the latter).
Nice crowd! 440 people through the door. I heard that UGA was on fall break, so maybe not everybody was in town. Athens seemed really dead.
The Georgia Theatre is a fantastic room--looks cool, sounds good, and the crew helps load the gear.
One bad thing: by the end of the gig, my elbows, forearms, and hands were hurting--the sore, tender, tendonitis/ulnar nerve kind of problem. Not good. I couldn't fall asleep until I took some Advil.
Friday: We spent the night in Athens and then headed to Charleston to play the Music Farm. Half the trip was through middle-nowhere-Georgia until we finally jumped on the interstate.
The Music Farm is a really cool venue! We played a great show (including TWO encores!) for over 300 people. Not bad for our first time in Charleston. The crew also helped load gear in and out.
I ate at Basil Thai Restaurant, just down the street. Totally awesome, but then again I'm genetically predisposed to like anything served with white rice.
I sat at the bar (which obviously faces the kitchen). What a cool set up! The two woks stay on the fire the whole time. A water spigot is right above each one, so after each dish, they wash the wok and their tools right there, dump it in the moat around the fire, and move on to the next thing. Very cool to watch.
We added the Blue Swede version of Hooked on a Feeling (ooga chuckas and all), which we had learned last weekend for the wedding. It went over well.
More forearm and elbow problems (though the back of my hands didn't hurt like the previous evening). Advil in the morning, Advil in the evening. Once again, my arms were so uncomfortable that I had to take medicine to dull them enough that I could sleep.
Saturday: the final gig on this trip was a birthday party in Anderson, South Carolina. We had Kip and Zach running sound for us on this one.
The stage was really small and I had no monitor, so Kip ran me a line into the open channel on my mixer--voila! My amp is also my monitor! Kip is super awesome.
As quickly as possible, we loaded out and headed back to Atlanta. I slept most of the way.
Sunday: my AM church gig was pretty good. I was able to get a spot in with the rest of the band, which makes a big difference for me--I'm not playing into the back of the preacher's head (or the bandleader's), and I can hear everybody so much better. A win!
My PM church gig had a problem with the main speakers. The far side/left side isn't working. I would suspect somebody's been tinkering with the main set up and has accidentally panned everything to the right side, and now can't get it back to the center position. You'd think that the biggest Catholic church in the diocese would have a dedicated audio pro to make sure that everything always sounded perfect, but instead...we have volunteers.
My flute face is either really bad, or my flute is really out of whack.
A guy and his girlfriend were really amused by my performance (both of them gesturing towards me and talking and laughing, and mimicking playing flute). Do you get paid to go to church? I do.
I also had the chance to drop the line "Throw me the idol, I throw you the whip!" You've got to use it when you get the chance.
Monday: I woke up today (Monday) without pain in my arms. Maybe I'm allergic to the keyboard.
We're at Smith's Olde Bar this Friday, performing a set of Beatles stuff (with some new ones--it's time to write some more horn charts!).
