The touring continues! Here's what happened in May.
Thursday, May 12: We flew to Fort Walton Beach, Florida, the vans picked us up, and we headed to Destin for our show.
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| off to a weird start |
This place we played in Destin was sort of a community amphitheater kind of place, with a big sandy field in front of it and way too much direct sunlight. It was pretty nice once the sun went down and the people began creeping closer to the stage.
We caught the 7 AM flight back to Atlanta, had a two hour layover (ugh), and then flew at 11 AM to Miami. Ouch. Meanwhile, the guys driving the vans had gotten up even earlier than us and drove the gear to Miami for the next thing.
Friday, May 13: We played a wedding in this strange room in this strange building in Miami. It was like a fake nightclub in the lobby of an office building that didn't have any occupants? Maybe it was apartments, and there was nobody coming and going. Anyway, interesting room.
Dinner was pathetic. Here's my roasted potatoes, roasted veggies, and quinoa. Yum! Also, that's not nearly enough food.
Saturday, May 14: The Amp in St. Augustine is really great. Cool venue, good backstage area, sounds good, holds plenty of people. Rock n roll.
After this show, we headed a little bit back down to the Turnpike, because the next gig was in...MIAMI!
Ok, so we're off! Sailing away from Miami. Cue the Miami Vice theme.
We did the lap around the bay. Pretty painless, and then we docked, and then it started to rain! Jeez! I got my horns back in the cases without too much of a problem, but the rented keyboards and stuff got pretty wet. If it'd been my gear...oooo, I would've been pissed. Of course, once everything was wet, it stopped raining, and the humidity skyrocketed to 300%.
And the next day, we flew home. Yay!
Thursday, May 19: The following afternoon, we flew to Denver for a gig. The event wasn't until the following day, the time zones make it really tough to fly this far west and then play a show that night. This nice path was right near our hotel. Nice weather we're having!
However...temperatures were expected to plummet, and at the time of packing my suitcase, the gig was supposed to be outside (IN THE SNOW!!!!!!), so I packed a space heater. 'Cause I'm a wimp.
We were going to be maybe out here? I'm not sure. Anyway, we ended up in the boathouse for the reservoir for the city of Denver.
It was loud, it was packed, it was rich people. We got through it.
And it snowed the whole time we were playing! It's almost June! Why is this happening?
Saturday, May 21: We flew from Denver to Austin, TX for a birthday party gig. The high in Austin: 98 degrees.
Party time. At least we got to use our own gear on this one.
And the next day, we flew home. Austin's airport had a massive line for security. It may be time to invest in Clear and skip all that bullshit.
Sunday, May 29: Night one of our two night stand at the Windjammer in Isle of Palms, SC.
Last year when we were here, I had an awful time with my wireless microphone--basically, I had tons of interference. I think I've solved that issue for the most part, but once again, my microphone was not working at soundcheck. Zach and I played with it, and I think we figured out that his antennas were too close to my antennas (and his were winning!), but Zach figured out that we could hook my receivers into his system, and then it worked pretty flawlessly. How about that! Go Zach!
The local crew guys were not at all excited about loading all of our gear back into the trailer, but there's no way we were leaving everything on stage overnight to get full of that ultra fine sand, and there was no security at all to keep it safe if we kept it in the building. Sorry! We like our stuff, and we like to work.
Monday, May 30: Night two at the Windjammer. Same stuff. When we jumped on stage to play, I discovered right off the bat that my sustain pedal no longer worked. I had an emergency pedal in one of my keyboard cases, so Zach dug it out really quickly and I got on with the gig. It's never fun to try and diagnose a gear failure in the middle of a show, FYI. I was rattled for four or five songs.
Ok, so we survived that one. After the show, we drove about an hour up the Florida Turnpike to get a jump on the next day's travel. This ozone air purifier thing was going in Greg and my room when we got there. What happened here? Greg thought maybe someone smoked in the room. We unplugged it, but other than that, we were too tired to care.
Sunday, May 15: We played a private party for...hmm...maybe they were insurance people? I don't remember. Anyway, we were on the top deck of this massive party boat/mega yacht thing that goes out into Biscayne Bay for a couple of hours. We were pretty deliriously tired at this point, and the direct sunlight wasn't so great. Fortunately for us, the gear was backline (with a few exceptions), so SIR got to cry about all their electronics cooking in the sun.
...but also, it's Florida, so a shower seemed eminent. The gear was tarped.
The food here was awful. I didn't grab a picture, but they set up some shitty buffet in our break room, and the only vegetarian things were rice and salad, and there was no salad dressing, so I ate a plate of white rice and a plate of lettuce. Damn, dude.
Tuesday, May 17: I picked up a last minute jazz quartet gig at Chateau Elan. It was not so good. The contractor who hired us put together a weird combination of musicians that never jelled. It was bad...for three hours straight.
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| the band is late for load in |
The pianist on this private/corporate dinner reception gig thought it was completely acceptable to put out a big plastic tip bowl (holy shit that is tacky). In case your are wondering, the QR code inside is so you can send money to his PayPal account. Really?
In better news, Elliot Lurie (of the band Looking Glass, writer and singer of the mega hit Brandy) sent me an old unpublished track from 1975, asking if I would care to add saxophone to it. Uhh, hell yeah!
The band is Elliot on vocals, Paul Griffin on keyboards, Bob Babbitt on bass, Rick Marotta on drums, Ralph MacDonald on percussion, and David Spinozza on guitar. Giants, all of them. What an honor!
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| my chart |
It's out there on Spotify and Apple Music and iTunes. You can find it if you're looking.
Wednesday, May 18: Yacht Rock did a video shoot for our Christmas collaboration with John Driskell Hopkins. A couple of hours of pantomiming.
Friday, May 20: It started as rain, but before we even left the hotel, it was already snowing pretty hard.
Fortunately, the gig was officially moved indoors, saving me hours of frustration and misery.
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| Birthday cake. I snagged a hunk on my way out the door at the end of the night. It was delicious. |
Monday, May 23 to Friday, May 27: Yacht Rock set up in a big rehearsal room and started concentrated practice of the show for July and August, and I guess beyond that? Some medleys, some staging ideas--nothing too major. Hopefully, I can remember it all.
Saturday, May 28: Lexington, South Carolina. Another one of these community amphitheater places. Not too bad. Our first attempt at implementing some of the rehearsal stuff was successful.
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| the view out front |
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| the view out back |
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| he will fetch with you for as long as you're willing to throw the ball |
Tuesday, May 31: Travel day! We drove back to Atlanta and divided up the gear. The end!
