The tour begins...in Florida! Four nights in a this strange time capsule, where it always looks and feels like it's 1994. Florida is ageless in that way.
We added Easy by the Commodores for this run. My chart:
Thursday: Ft. Lauderdale. The van and trailer picked us up at the airport, already showing the stress of being on the road--someone attempted a break in the night before. Thankfully, it was unsuccessful because the door is secured from the inside. Still, ugh. That would've been a terrible start to the year.
Within an hour of being here, I'd already seen a large (nearly three foot) iguana. South Florida is wild, man. An iguana right in a parking lot in the middle of town.
We've never had a show in south Florida and weren't sure what to expect inside Revolution Live, but the crowd was good for a Thursday night in a new room. Maybe three or four hundred people were there? Mainly, this was a good gig to ease back into being on the road--setting up the gear, pacing our energy through the show, and managing the downtime before and after.
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| agressive guitar tuning |
Not the coolest place we've ever played, but I'd be down with coming back here a couple of more times until we can find a better, nicer venue.
Friday: Orlando. We motored up the turnpike to central Florida for a giant corporate event for Staples. Four thousand in attendance. At the start, it looked like the event space was too big with too many options, and we'd be playing to nobody in particular.
The crowd gradually filled in, though, and this suddenly felt like a really slammin' outdoor concert...complete with fireworks!
And by the time we we had reached the climax of the show, it felt like all four thousand people were hanging on every note--very cool.
We went right up to the 10 PM noise curfew, but the client asked us to keep playing. After about twenty minutes of negotiation (which felt way too long to be successful), we got on stage to play a few more songs, only to be shut down by the venue management. Soooooo, we played acoustically for maybe four or five songs. At that point we were down to a couple of hundred people directly in front of us--it was cool, but it was also a little weird.
Still--a killer night night, especially for it being a potentially stale corporate event.
We spent the night at this convention center/resort, too. Miles of hallways.
Saturday: More of Orlando. With basically all day to kill before our gig, I slept as late as humanly possible, and then went for a run on the nature trail.
The evening's event was a fundraiser at UCF. We had to load in in the afternoon, but didn't play until 9:30 PM, which left us with hours and hours of downtime. I made the most of it by practicing in the alley behind the venue for a couple of hours. Probably the best part of this night.
Steve Harvey MC'd the evening (yes, that Steve Harvey). When he finished and turned the night over to us, much of the audience began to filter out of the room, leaving us with at most two hundred people to entertain. Kind of a bummer after the previous show.
Sunday: Another spring day in Orlando. One more day on the nature trail.
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| other than the little lizards that were everywhere, this is the only wildlife that I encountered on the nature trail |
I checked out of my room at 1 PM, ate lunch, and sat on a couch in the lobby until 3:45, when we headed to the next gig.
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| this Lyft had barf bags available |
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| left hand on top, buddy |
Big show! I'm pretty sure this one sold out--the morning of the gig, less than one hundred of the 1,900 tickets were available. Great crowd. This was an awesome gig.
Monday: Flying home!
I was really excited for the opportunity to sub on bari sax with the Joe Gransden big band Monday night. Joe's been a friend for over twenty years, and the band and the music are great. The other guys in the sax section--John Sandfort, Michael Opitz, and Matt Miller--made me feel like I was part of the gang, and they all played such incredible stuff (a little inspiration, but also the terror that everybody else is so much better than me)! Even though I felt out of my league, it was a wonderful night.
Here's the show, if you care to watch:
Yacht Rock is back out this coming week, with shows in New Jersey on Friday, New York City on Saturday, and Boston on Sunday.
