April 2024

Saturday, April 6, 2024: Savannah, GA. The helicopter gig (as we know it) again, on the driving range again, but with a better (covered) stage. I love the helicopters. The gig is whatever.

I was a little worried because the forecast said it was going to be a bit chilly/breezy, so I brought my heater and some hand warmers, and I was tucked into an enclosed corner of the stage.

Not much else to report. The vegetarian option for food was a grilled cheese sandwich.

I ran on the treadmill when we got to the hotel, as there was no time to squeeze it in before the gig.

Thursday, April 18, 2024: Atlanta, GA. Following three days of summer rehearsals, we played a private gig at the Buckhead Theatre. It's still a very stale room. 

We did immediately try several of our new cover songs out, and they went well--no train wrecks!

Thursday, April 25, 2024: Destin, FL. The first time we played here, I never thought we'd have to come back (it's a stage in a sandy field between some neighborhoods), but here we are for the first year in a row. I guess it's fine. The six hour van ride to get here really sucked the energy out of wanting to play the gig, though (even though a slept for most of the trip). Always a good crowd, though.

This show was shorter than usual (and started at 7 instead of 8 PM), so I ran before and after the gig.

Friday, April 26, 2024: Birmingham, AL. Another big van ride--this one was five hours, but our van left pretty early so that the production guys could get some setup stuff done before the instruments showed up.

This was our biggest crowd at Avondale Brewing--at least, it had the biggest ticket sales. No Charles Barkley on this night, though.

What else...my alto reed was very soft--probably time to swap it out for a new one.

I still haven't found a good running route here--it's one of those places where the sidewalks abruptly stop in random places, only to begin again in two blocks.

Following the show, we drove about halfway back to Atlanta (Pell City, AL), because we had a morning flight out of the Atlanta airport.

Saturday, April 27, 2024, Las Vegas, NV. Up early (7 AM) to drive back to Atlanta to jump on a plane to Vegas for a corporate gig. I slept pretty well on the flight, though I was awake over Oklahoma City long enough to eat the burrito I'd brought on board. Very tired.

The gig was the ol' corporate party in a big ballroom for a bunch of rich people. There was a duo set up on the opposite side of the room that did rat pack/Vegas show stuff, and when they finished, everybody turned around and partied on our side.

The backline company for this one was pretty good. The only had the cheap Guitar Center keyboard stands, so I had to stack two single stands (in the style of The Great Bencuya!), but this was a better move than having a foot wide gap between the two. 

The Fantom (top keyboard) that they brought had a loose memory card, so Eric, the backline guy, had to take the panel off the back, clean and reseat it to get it to work. Scary moment for a second there.

The Nord Five--the piano sounds were really bright and loud compared to the organ. Are these factory settings? I wonder. I guess I could've tried to reset it, but I didn't notice until the gig had started, so I just rode the volume knob all night.

The local audio crew was not ideal. There were three or four guys, but only one spoke English, so all requests had to be made through a translator. They also dispatched some stuff (which drove Zach crazy), and the process of sorting it out took a little extra time when we were all short on patience.

Anyway...we stayed in the same hotel. Check out this room!

We finished soundcheck around 4 PM and we didn't play until 9:30 PM (body clock says ouch!), so here are some pics from my run.

Monkeyboy was unavailable for this gig, so we had Cody Matlock filling in on guitar.

These were cool--they were video screens hung around the room to make it look like windows on a ship.

We finished at 11:30 PM, so by the time I had made it back to my room, packed everything, taken a shower, and fallen into bed it was around 1 AM. I was awake at 4:30 AM and sitting in the airport shuttle at 5 AM. 

The Sphere looked like the moon this morning. Kip had the great quote: "That's no moon."

Same gate as yesterday. Let's go home.