The annual Yacht Rock presentation of Prince's Purple Rain is one of my favorite shows that we do. The music is fun and weird and we do a good job with it. This year's show exploded with the news that Prince had died; approximately half of the 1,000 tickets sold following his passing. The Park Tavern (who hosts the show) then released an additional 2,000 tickets, all of which eventually sold out. That's a lot of people packed under one tent!
Overall, I think we played a great gig. We did have a technical issue with the click track and out off (used on a couple of the Purple Rain songs) being audible in the PA, but no one outside of the band seemed to recognize it, so maybe it wasn't as big a deal as we thought at the time. My feeling is that with the 3,000 people talking and singing a cheering (and drinking), no one paid any attention to it, and once the song began, the click probably blended into everything else that was coming through the speakers.
That was the worst of it; the good moments from the gig far outweigh that. Highlights included guest vocalist 'Slick' Barnes' joyous performance of Boogie on Reggae Woman, the crowd's reaction to Let's Dance, the mother/daughter duet by Keisha and Courtney Jackson on I Feel for You, and the incredible energy from the crowd during the encore of 1999.
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| our man Peter Olson laying down some sweet keyboard sounds on The Beautiful Ones |
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| ART! |
