Saturday, December 7, 2024: Naples, FL. This was some kind of corporate holiday party. No big deal--stakes are low! This was our first gig with Van handling the monitor desk (Zach is out for the foreseeable future on paternity leave), so it was slow going as he worked through all of his responsibilities for the day (also, I think there was some kind of gear issue with the rented gear that further complicated things).
The rented gear was not so great here--some worn out looking stuff and cheap microphone stands and mismatched pieces. They also had limited choices for sustain pedals, and none of their options seemed to communicate with the Nord keyboards that Bencuya and I both use. After fiddling with the pedals and the settings on the Nords, the backline guy offered to go to a nearby Guitar Center to buy a different brand of pedal that would work.
He soon texted us from the store, saying that the only sustain pedals at Guitar Center were the same brand that he had at the gig, so we were out of luck. Huh. Guitar Center has their own brand of gear--Proline (including sustain pedals), so this seemed weird, but maybe so.
After soundcheck and dinner, I went to the Guitar Center website, and according to it, the Naples store had a variety of sustain pedals in stock...soooooo, I called them and they confirmed that stock was up to date, sooooooo...I put two of them on hold, and the client drove one of our crew guys to pick them up! The Guitar Center employee remembered the backline guy--he said that he walked right by the Proline pedals.
That was weird! The Proline pedals worked perfectly on the gig, and we didn't see the backline guy ever again. Maybe he was hiding in his truck. We got to keep the sustain pedals as a bonus.
I started feeling woozy around two-thirds of the way through this gig, and by the time we'd made it to the hotel, whatever sickness I had developed into a raging fever. The hotel lobby didn't have any Tylenol in their sundry shop, so I took a shower and went to bed. It felt like I woke up every forty-five minutes, either freezing or sweating. Not good!
In the morning, I got up and had some coffee, but I still felt so bad that I considered not flying home. Monkeyboy came through with some Advil for me, and by the time we had cleared security at the airport, I felt remarkably normal! Huh! I went to my church gig feeling fine, but by the time it ended, I was falling apart again, so I took some more drugs and went to bed. The next four days repeated this--a raging hangover-like headache that I could beat for a couple of hours at a time. Maybe the backline guy got me!
Thursday, December 12, 2024: Marietta, GA. I mostly recovered from whatever mystery plague just in time to play a Christmas party with some friends at a local church. Pretty easy stuff--mostly flute, with a little bit of saxophone thrown in there. Hopefully it sounded good, too, because I couldn't hear much of anything from where I was sitting.
How many gigs have a whistle solo? How many gigs need a whistle solo?
Friday, December 13, 2024: Columbia, SC. We played a holiday party/fundraiser for Camp Cole--our fourth year in a row doing it.
We stopped at our usual spot near Augusta for lunch. Here's what I picked up from the Sprouts Farmers Market.
A little warmup in the janitor's closet. That water heater absorbed a lot of notes without failing.
My top keyboard (the Fantom) developed some sort of crackling noise in the line (and sometimes loss of signal), so Van, Kip, and I tried to chase it down by swapping cables and channels on their end and mine. Eventually, we settled on it being a bad instrument cable.
Other than that, it was a regular old gig. It felt like it probably went on a little too long.
Saturday, December 14, 2024: Atlanta, GA. The Yacht Rock Christmas show at The Roxy was a lot of fun, and sounded great.
Tuesday, December 24, 2024: Atlanta, GA. Christmas is just a good hang with my family these days, so I took on a bunch of church gigs. Six, to be exact!
First one was at St. Jude in Sandy Springs. This was an overflow mass in their gym, populated by those who couldn't squeeze into the main sanctuary. I really just took this one because my mom is a parishioner and I thought it'd be cool to play the service she attended, and the rest of my family came along, too.
Musically, this was definitely the B Team, though it was mostly the fault of the director. Reports from out front say that it sounded fine, so I guess it was mostly just my own frustration.
Next up was my usual gig at the Cathedral. Nothing to report here. No problems parking or with the music. Interestingly, this was the lowest paying of all of my church gigs, in spite of being the most affluent of the three churches. I guess that's the way it goes.
My third and fourth services of the night were at the Catholic Church of St. Ann (where I just played their Christmas party). I've played here a lot over the years, and Ed (the music director) does a great job making the night easy. I played the 9 PM and midnight masses.
Wednesday, December 25, 2024: Marietta, GA. I played the 9 and 11 AM masses at St. Ann's with my friend Jan, who was subbing for Ed. Jan and I always have fun doing these.
Sunday, December 29, 2024: Atlanta to Las Vegas. The Yacht Rock Revue's NYE gig was in Las Vegas this year (opening for Journey!), so I opted to fly out the night before, mainly because I hate to get up really early and go to the airport. It worked out that I was able to play my afternoon church gig and then leave directly from there for the airport.
We flew over my mom's hometown.
Our gig was at the Wynn in Vegas. Nice room!
Monday, December 30, 2024: Las Vegas. Today was setup and rehearsal day. Kip, Van, Nackers, Searcy, and I were in the room around 9-ish to begin putting the gear together.
Lunch was supposed to happen at 1 PM. Nackers and I wandered around looking for it, and eventually we were directed to some meeting room that had food, but in the middle of eating, Searcy found the food. He thought we were probably eating Journey's food. We finished eating their food, and then went up to eat some more. It was all equally lame.
After rehearsal, I went for a run.
A bunch of us were eating at the Mexican restaurant across the street from the Wynn, so I met up with them there.
Tuesday, December 31, 2024: Las Vegas. A lotta nothing...
Breakfast. This was $40.
I hung around, went for a run, ate lunch, hung around, took a shower, went for a walk, and finally got dressed and went down to set out my horns for the gig.
This was a fun gig! We had Vegas dancers on the apron around the stage for most of the songs in our seventy minute set.
Journey followed us about twenty minutes later. The audience seemed kind of indifferent to them (kind of like it was a big corporate party with a band playing, and only some of the room was paying attention) until just before midnight, and then the dance floor got pretty full.
After a spirited rendition of Auld Lang Sine, Journey played Don't Stop Believing and Any Way You Want It to finish out the night.
And that was that. Most of us flew home January 1.
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Please check this out--I wrote and recorded this arrangement of I'll Be Home for Christmas, and it turned out great!
