Saturday: Yacht Rock played a wedding in Chattanooga. About as easy as a wedding can be--the waiting between soundcheck and the playing was the hardest (and longest part). I would bet that we hung around for almost four hours. Lots of time staring at our phones, both in the green room and in a coffee shop up by the art museum.
We had a sub on drums: Cole McSween from The Shadowboxers (an excellent Atlanta band). He did a fantastic job! Definitely one of the most prepared subs we've ever had.
The reception was one long set of approximately an hour and forty-five minutes. No problem. I'd rather play than sit around even more than we already had.
Kip and Zach ran sound. We were in a tent outside next to the Tennessee Aquarium. The stage sounded great. Those guys are worth every penny.
Load out was pretty easy, and we were headed for home before 12:30 AM.
By the time I got home, ate something, and put my gear away, it was around 4 AM, which hurt really badly when I got up for my Easter gigs at 6:30 AM.
Sunday: Easter gigs! I played three services at one church, and then my usual PM gig.
8:30 AM. Not my most awake or aware. We played in the gym. Not much to report. The binders with the music were for a different mass, so we were constantly shuffling music between players to get things in the right key. My brain wasn't quite up to full speed for this one, though I did play the Top Gun theme over half a dozen of the songs we played. I can be your wingman any time.
10:30 AM. I played alongside the choir for this one. By this time, my coffee had worn off. I played pretty well, though, and found a couple of spots to do some good stuff.
12:30 PM. Mentally, I was fading, but the music was the best of the three. The best combination of players (and my third look at the music) made this one really good, and really fun. I'll miss playing with these guys a ton.
From here, I went and had dinner with my parents before racing home for a thirty minute nap.
My PM gig was, uh...interesting. A trumpet player was there because...nothing says Easter like a trumpet? The weird thing was that we had the trumpet, but she played no fanfares. No special arrangements to showcase the fact that ON THIS DAY, WE HAVE A TRUMPET PLAYER! Instead, she played the melody along with the vocalists, and also me when I was playing the melody. I didn't get it at all. So djembe, acoustic piano, and then three female vocalists and a trumpet and a flute all playing in UNISON. I don't think the trumpet played anything above the staff for the entire hour. For a few songs, she sat out and I did my usual improvisational stuff, but the rest of it was arranged middle school band style.
I really wanted to take a picture of the trumpeter for my blog, but I think she would've beaten me up, and I was really tired and just wanted to get through the gig.
The highlight of the gig had nothing to do with music, though. The priest's microphone desperately needed some EQ, and there was some lowish feedback that followed every word he said. It finally exploded like a tornado siren about two thirds of the way through! Forty-five to sixty seconds of full blast air horn (if you want to know, it was a G in the staff--that's how bored I was. I figured out what note his feedback was based on my relative pitch from the song we'd just played). He fumbled around and finally turned his microphone off to kill it. That woke me up.
That was that. This week, Please Pleaserock Me is taking the Beatles to 37 Main in Buford on Friday night. How many times will we have to explain that we're not the Yacht Rock Schooner? On Saturday, the Yacht Rock Revue is playing a pretty cool private event in Duluth (Atlanta Athletic Club). This is our third year on the AAC gig. The scenery is very nice.
