David Freeman Music

Yacht Rock played someone's birthday party last night in Roswell.  We were in a room unfit for a band. Personal highlights/lowlights include the heel coming off my shoe, me watching the Braves game on the TV instead of playing about half of the penny whistle solo on Call Me Al , and...I don't know.  I not interested in being at this gig at all.  It didn't help that we played over half the night to an empty room. The Braves won, by the way.

What a cool gig!  Greg and Nick from Yacht Rock played a gig last night at Eddie's Attic in Decatur which featured their original songs.  The rest of the band (plus or minus Jason Nackers and me) backed them.  It was refreshing to play some different songs, and also to play without the polyester and sunglasses and the YRR schtick. I played keyboards and a couple of songs and flute on a couple;  I also played saxophone on two of Greg's songs.  It felt like I was REALLY loud on both, but it sounded too good for me to back off.  I'll be interested to see if somebody got audio or video of either to hear what it was like out front.  One was a Sanborn-ish alto thing and the other was a growly Clarence Clemons tenor. Bencuya's original Cartoon Butterfly was also on the list, and he asked me to play piano in addition to the flute solo.  The adrenaline flowed freely on the piano part, but unfortunately, it caused me to pretty much throw up when ...

Yacht Rock played a private event in Philadelphia Tuesday night.  I have no idea what it was for.  We flew up that morning.  Hans flew up to White Plains, NY, the day before and drove our gear down to Philly. Check your phone. The gig was right inside the front doors of the Museum of Art (the Rocky steps museum).  We didn't have the opportunity to go outside, unfortunately.  It would've been a cool picture of the the seven of us doing the Rocky pose. The inside of the hall is beautiful and not at all acoustically friendly.  Not a good place to put a band! The first set started out slow, but the crowd got the hang of it.  By the second set, they were into it. No problems with my laptop on this night.  I guess that was some sort of random glitch. My hotel room had a bug problem.  That's my pillow right there. We flew home Wednesday.  Check your phone.

Yacht Rock played Boston (Cambridge, specifically) for the first time Friday night.  Wow!  Depending on who you talked to, it either sold out or came close (443 people out of a 500 capacity).  Hopefully that will become the next stop on our regular trips to the Northeast.  It was a great night for the band. The day didn't begin well, however.  We had brought all four keyboards home for an Atlanta gig the night before, and when we checked in at the airport Friday morning, Delta welcomed us with a $200 PER KEYBOARD charge for oversized and overweight items.  There was no arguing with them either.  Nothing like beginning the day $800 in the hole. Once again Delta arbitrarily interprets the rules--the same four keyboards that we flew from White Plains to Atlanta on Sunday (for $0 extra) now cost us $800 to fly from Atlanta to White Plains.  Can anyone at Delta explain that? So...we got to White Plains, and hung out for about an hour whi...

Ugh.  Direct sunlight.  I'm not a fan.  Yacht Rock played a gig--a private party of some sort--on the west side of town.  We were tucked in a corner, outside, no stage, no cover.  It was brutally hot at load in.  I was really pissed about letting my gear fry in the sun for several hours, let alone playing a gig out there. Fortunately, right as we began the sky got hazy, and that kind of saved us. The crowd looked good, but they were kind of indifferent to what we were doing.  Maybe they were just curious like they'd never seen us before.  Anyway, not a lot of love. My favorite part of the gig was when a passing train's brakes started squealing at the beginning of Maneater .  Kip thought it was feedback and began frantically searching for it.  The squeal was a B ( Maneater is in B minor).  Really loud!

Yacht Rock returned home yesterday from a short trip to the northeast with very successful gigs in Washington DC and New York, including our biggest audience to ever see us in NYC.  Very cool. Wednesday:  We drove all day.  It's too far to drive to DC and play a gig.  Late in the afternoon, we stopped in South Carolina and ate lunch at a random Mexican restaurant, and considered the consequences of touching a fence that might or might not have been electrified. Thursday:  There's a crappy Holiday Inn in Maryland.  We woke up there.  Off to DC for our gig!  First, a Chinese restaurant for lunch: We played The Hamilton, one of the greatest venues we've ever played.  Beautiful room, great sound, fantastic staff.  We had 517 people (in a room that holds 600) on a Thursday night.  It's a win! Friday:  The drive from DC to NYC takes...4 hours?  5 hours?  Even when you get close enough to start...