Tuesday, September 3, 2019

Live on the Green

Yacht Rock was on the road again this week, beginning with a Thursday evening show in Nashville a their "Live on the Green" festival. We were in a the 7:30 PM slot. Way back in 2012, we also played this program, though they held in October then, and I remember I was underdressed and very cold, and I borrowed Mark Dannells' jacket. You can relive it here.

Anyway, after a somewhat chaotic load in and set up, we only had time for a super quick line check before giving way to the next band's set up. I guess we were a little late, but the stage crew was also a little slow with the plan for a drum riser, and we had to wait til that was set before we could build around it.


The festival then drove us to a nearby hotel to relax before our set. Urban golf carting!


After about an hour, we made our way back over to the backstage area to eat dinner. Quite a crowd had already gathered to see the band before us, American Authors.


The change-over--one drum riser rolled aside, our riser rolled in, and we brought our gear back into position around it.


Here's a crowd shot. Pretty fun gig. I heard that there were 20,000 people out there? I guess that it's possible, even though I could only see these people who were lit up. The spotlight was also pretty intense.


We finished, and immediately went into a fire drill of running our gear off the side of the stage, laying it down (I commandeered a large table and piled keyboards, saxophones, and pedals on it), and going back for more. Ten minutes earlier, we were rock stars! Now we're just trying to get our shit out of the way so the next band can start on time. So it goes...