Monday: Fly day. I'd stayed up most of the night working and packing, so I slept for the entire flight.
Greg Lee and Mark Cobb were unavailable for this gig, so we brought Tom Young and Ganesh Giri Jaya from the Yacht Rock Schooner along.
Backline was limited, so in addition to carrying saxophones and my EWI rig, we had to bring all four keyboards (plus a guitar and bass in road cases).
We also brought Kip! Yay!
The roads of St. Thomas are pretty drastic, moving from the coast up into the mountains pretty quickly.
We happened upon a wreck.
The band was put up at the Ritz--individual rooms! Nice. We were greeted with some kind of rum drink upon arrival.
There was also some small food, which we devoured while we waited to be checked in.
Golf cart rides to our rooms.
Immediately after checking in, I realized that I'd left my suitcase at the airport, so Kip and I rode all the way back, grabbed it, and repeated the process.
Tuesday: The view from my room.
I got up, had some coffee, and went for a run.
Later, I had lunch at a restaurant on the beach, and put it on the Underhill's tab.
Saw an iguana, watchin' the game, chillin'.
Our gig was at Iggie's. The set up was a little bit difficult because the space wasn't ideal. We were originally going to be on the beach (on a small stage), but it was ruled out because of the possibility of rain. Instead, we were in the corner of an outdoor restaurant. Nice view!
This gig wasn't ideal. Between the set up (these kinds of keyboard stands are difficult because the legs get in the way of the pedals, and both keyboards are flat, making the top one difficult to use) and the subs, and the resulting different sound, I could never get comfortable. I didn't play very well, though I had a pretty good solo on Takin' it to the Streets. Most of the night, I felt like I was chasing everybody else.
Wednesday: After another good night of sleep, I got up and practiced a little bit before we left.
All was going according to plan until thunderstorms caused us to be diverted to Charleston for refueling. That added an extra couple of hours of sitting in the seat. The old lady next to me was very nervous and confused about the entire afternoon.
Finally, we made it back to Atlanta!
