Corner Pockets

January 7, 2022: And we're off! Yacht Rock met up at the airport for a morning flight to Boston, only to have the flight cancel within thirty minutes of taking off due to bad weather in the northeast. We were rescheduled on early afternoon flights, so...four hours of hanging around the airport started with lunch at TGI Fridays.

Our plane from Atlanta was further delayed--we sat on the runway for a half hour before taking off (which was fine, because I was already asleep), and then we had to do a few loops off the Massachusetts coast before the runway opened for us to land.

 

It looks there were no sharks close to Boston (in case we had to ditch and swim to shore). Three great whites and one mako.

We finally got in around 5 PM, collected most of our luggage (neither Mark Cobb's nor my suitcase made it!), and made our way to the Boston House of Blues for a very quick set up and soundcheck before they opened the doors.

The gig was kind of a blur. We were tired and stressed out about the travel and the frantic setup. I don't remember much about it. Kind of a smallish crowd, too--700 tickets sold, but there were lots of no-shows.

After the gig, I wandered around to several convenience stores before I finally found one that was open and could sell me a contacts case and a bottle of saline solution. It took about a half hour. I hugged someone's golden retriever who was out for a short walk at midnight, and it made me feel better about my situation.

Long, cold day.

January 8: Still no suitcase, but I felt a lot better after a good night's sleep. I headed over to the closest Indian restaurant, happy that it was open.

The hotel we stayed at, The Verb, was on the opposite side of Fenway Park from the House of Blues, and its rock and roll vibe was greatly appreciated!

The best thing about this room was the record player--you could swap records out in the lobby, but I never did. My room had Sgt. Pepper's, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (there was also a copy of Carlos Santana's greatest hits, but I passed on that). It was a really nice way to spend the afternoon, and also the wind down time after the gigs.

Knowing that I'd have lots of down time, I brought my clarinet and practiced some in the room as well.

Our missing suitcases showed up around 4:30 PM, so I was able to squeeze in a run before soundcheck.

Night two was waaaay easier, obviously, and we had a significantly larger crowd.

The next morning, we got cars to the airport and flew home, as the gear headed west to another corner of the country.

The following Thursday afternoon, we flew out to Portland, Oregon to begin our time in the Pacific Northwest.

When we landed, it was only 6 PM local time, so I went for a little run before I ate and called it a night.

The city straddles a river, and there are lots of cool bridges, as well as a good path on both sides for moving on foot.

Our hotel was in downtown Portland--another very cool place to spend a few nights--but downtown was really dead at night. Many of the restaurants are closed, and the few that are open are mostly doing delivery and takeout. Such was the case with this evening's Indian food. It tasted great, but this is a disappointing amount of plastic.

The next morning, I had breakfast in the hotel restaurant. Blueberry pancakes and all the coffee I could pour down my throat. I was sweating.

More time outside around the riverbank (pretty much the same loop that I did the night before).

The afternoon brought another quest to find an open Indian restaurant. I hit a few dead ends before finally finding an open restaurant, but it too had switched to the takeout only. There was nothing particularly good or bad about this meal, but I think I've finally satisfied my appetite for Indian food. It's not that I won't eat it when I find it, but I don't think I'll be on the hunt for it anymore.

So...finally!...Friday, January 14, we played our first of two shows at the Aladdin Theater in Portland. 

First of all, it's Revue...

Not a bad little theatre. Kind of cold, though (I found out later that the fan to blow the haze around for the lights was pointed at me, so re-aiming it made a difference on night two).

Sold out! Or at least, as far as ticket sales were concerned. I think most live acts right now are seeing lots of no-shows. It's totally understandable. Portland was pretty great about wearing masks in the audience, though.

I, being a wimp with the cold, opted to break out a pair of these hand warmers for the gig. The one in my right pants pocket was forgotten until my saxophone pressed it against my thigh, and I thought my horn was on fire! What the hell!...oh yeah.

I had some fun with this fan who wore this shirt and stood in the front row. Missing anyone? 

All in all, this was a good gig! Everybody was loose and comfortable, and we kinda let it rip.

Saturday morning, I did one more loop up and down the river before we headed to Seattle.

We stopped for lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Olympia, and I wish I'd taken a picture of the enormous burrito I ate. My guess is that the tortilla was fifteen inches in diameter, and full of rice, beans, and grilled veggies. You'd have been impressed.

Our show for the evening was at the Neptune Theatre, where they know how to spell the name of our band.

Another chilly room. This one was kind of boomy--it's a little like the Wellmont Theater in New Jersey in that way, with all the concrete. The gig was fun, though, with more or less the same vibe as the night before.

Sunday, January 16, we got back in the vans and headed back to Portland. Our van of dudes couldn't make up our minds about lunch so we ended up driving directly to the Aladdin Theater without stopping. Luckily, there is plenty of good food to be had! I decided to try a vegan pizza place, but there was a freight train stopped in my path.

Unsure of what to do, I stood at the train crosswalk. The two locals behind me walked right past me, climbed the ladder onto one of the cars, walked across, and descended the other side. That's how it's done! So, I immediately followed. No consequences except for dirty hands.

So...salad and a pizza, and it was all vegan, and all delicious. 

On to load in. The Aladdin Theater gave me some wireless microphone interference; just some small dropouts on Friday, but our second night had major problems. I tried most of the available frequencies, but pretty much everything had the same blast of noise when I got six to ten feet away. I tried moving my entire rack a little bit, but that made no difference. I finally moved the antennas--laying down the right one (no difference), and then the left, and that was a pretty significant improvement. What's up with that? It wasn't crystal clear at the gig, but it was good enough that I could deal with it.

In other news, they fixed the marque! (the Revue part, not the Aladdin part)

Anyway, this gig was blah. Small crowd, low energy, an obnoxious lady acting out the lyrics to every song, the wireless problems I was having...not really into this one. Lots of masks in the audience, though, so that was good, but yeah, I was done with this one.

Monday, January 17: the brutality of flying east! We had a 6 AM flight back to Atlanta (4:40 shuttle to the airport). The other option was to sleep later, but not return to Georgia until 7:45 PM. Neither was appealing, so I went with the early call and slept the whole way home.

Something happened here in the middle of the night at PDX.

Tuesday, January 18: Recording session for some new Yacht Rock stuff. Sounds good to me!