April 2026

Wednesday, April 1-Sunday, April 5, 2026: Kennesaw, GA. Work in the theater pit continued with a few more long (five hour!) rehearsals and then the eventual opening weekend of the show. I think our performance gradually got better--some of it was from the repetition, and some of it was from learning what the conductor would do and what the cast would do, and being able to anticipate that. It never got all the way there, though, and several things that were musically sloppy never improved, and that was frustrating. It also made me question whether I was also part of the problem--am I in tune? am I rushing? am I listening for the right thing?

I played alto flute, piccolo, clarinet, and C flute for this show

dinner (penne and frozen vegetables and a can of diced tomatoes) in my car during a break

the set

 

I guess I'd never given much thought to who arranged the music for a musical--doesn't the composer do this?--but this show changed at some point from having three woodwind books to two woodwind books, so I assume somebody went back and made sure that the important moments were all there. That being said, I think there were lots of moments where the written stuff did our band no favors! There were a couple of spots where the four of us in a row (flute, clarinet, violin, and trumpet) would all have the same really high note in unison, and there didn't seem to be any important reason for this note to be screaming out of the music, and no reason to try and get all four of us to play perfectly in tune. How about we have one guy up there and everybody lower? Improve our chances of making it sound good? 

There were a few spots like that. Also, there were plenty of spots of Eb clarinet against piccolo that seemed to be overkill (particularly if you wrote this arrangement and knew that there were only a dozen players--do two of them need to be playing something four ledger lines above the staff?). 

Definitely a fair amount of arranging bullshit in there.

donuts!

So yeah, there were some really annoying things about playing with a bunch of college musicians...one night one of the string players wasn't available, so we played the show without him (I guess he couldn't find a sub, so...why didn't we hire a pro person for the night?)...the cellist showed up right before showtime more than once...the violinist missed soundcheck because he'd left his instrument at home and had to turn around and go back for it...keyboard guys who showed up at call time and then tried to hook their computers to the keyboards and had problems...and the ultimate: violinists (but also cellists) who would practice full blast in the pit up to and beyond when we were supposed to start. I like to practice, too, but I try to keep in mind when other musicians have to sit there and listen to it. This racket was a nightly occurrence, and it went on like this for more than ten minutes at a time. 

Sunday, April 5, 2025: Marietta, GA. Easter Sunday. I played three church services (8:30, 10:30, and 12:30) before heading to the KSU for my show. Good warm up! My buddy Ed plays piano and leads the music; it's hard to tell sometimes if he's paying any attention at all to what I'm doing.

Another car meal before a show--this is roasted potatoes, black beans, and whatever comes in those bags of assorted frozen vegetables. 

Thursday, April 9-Sunday, April 12, 2026: Kennesaw, GA. More of the show. More of the same. Glad it's only for a couple of weekends. All the small irritations are starting to wear me out.

I did get pretty good at my parts, so hopefully somebody in this pit will hire me for something good in the future. 

pub sub dinner backstage

Monday, April 13, 2026: Savannah, GA. Back in the world of Yacht Rock, we had a private gig on a rooftop in Savannah, so I got up really early and drove to Tucker to meet the vans and trailers.

Ugh! No cover. I hate to have my gear sitting out in the sun.

The catered food was not particularly good, though the vegetarian thing was fried rice with tofu, and that was ok with me.

Nice night, though, and an easy gig. The crew had a much more difficult day (this was an awful load in/out) than we did.

Thursday, April 16, 2025: Austin, TX. Another early morning, this time flying (security was ok today, thanks for asking). We landed in Texas early enough to go get lunch at Curra's, which has been a band favorite for years. Tastes like...Mexican food! I don't know what the big deal is, but everybody else seems to love it, so here we are.

I had veggie fajitas. They put French fries in their fajitas. I guess that's still vegetarian. Legal in Texas.

hola

The gear drove out from Atlanta, and by the time we arrived at Austin City Limits, they'd already set up just about everything, so I went for a run down around the lake.

Dinner was some stuff we ordered. Mine was some kind of grain bowl with broccoli. It was fine.

Another private event. Our performance was preempted by a ping pong tournament. What'd he win? Who cares. Anyway...

This room (the Moody Theater, where they film Austin City Limits), is pretty great. Easy gig. After the show, the band bailed early while the crew was getting the gear back out to the street. More sleep! 

Friday, April 17, 2026: Austin - Atlanta. I chose the afternoon flight, so I made sure that I got up and went for a run before we left for the airport. The flights were either 6:30 AM or 2 PM. No good choices there.

The Austin airport was crowded (no big surprise). I had three veggie tacos for lunch. They were actually really good.

April 19, 2026: Atlanta, GA. Made the ol' church gig. Here's my solo. Nothing fancy, but it sounds good. All that playing in the pit made me question whether or not I was ever playing anything in tune, so this recording was a bit of a relief to hear.

Monday, April 20-Friday, April 24, 2026: Atlanta, GA. Yacht Rock Primetime Tour rehearsals. These were pretty grueling, especially because I'm so burned out on all of this. 

This year, we're utilizing several cameras on stage, so there was a lot of camera blocking and experimentation. At times, it felt like we were playing the show for the cameras more than the people in the audience. There's lots of music going by, too, because we're doing more medleys. Nick made a giant spreadsheet of it all--the song, the camera focus, what the lights are doing--it was overwhelming.

There is now a very nice plywood box around my keyboards, making it easier than ever for me to look at my phone when I should be paying attention to what's happening on stage.

Saturday, April 25, 2026: Atlanta, GA. The first show of the tour was a big one at Ameris Bank Amphitheater in Alpharetta, GA (a northern suburb of Atlanta). Lots of pressure! I think everything worked pretty perfectly! It felt like a really long show, but I've heard nothing but positive comments about it from those in the audience.

Our crew was really pushed to its limits. Nobody knows if we'll be able to make it happen multiple nights in a row.

Keith Urban put out an album of yacht rock covers, and his people talked to our people about him sitting in with us. Uh, yeah. He brought a social media guy along and they made a bunch of videos to get a buzz going before the album came out. He came out and played the guitar solo at the end of Ride Like the Wind, and then played and sang on Steal Away and Just the Two of Us. Very cool. He's a cool guy.

It's feeling kind of like a theater/pit orchestra gig right now--I feel very focused on what I'm doing and what I'm hearing in my in-ears, but not very aware of the stage or the audience. Hopefully that will change as I get more comfortable with the new setlist. Kind of a weird headspace, like I'm just playing my parts in somebody else's show.

Sunday, April 26, 2026: Atlanta, GA. Back on my church gig. It's amusing that nobody at my church gig knows anything about my other gigs.

It was announced this week that the music leaders for my church gig are retiring, and I wonder if my gig will be eliminated by the new regime. As you probably know, there's a lot of office politics inside of a church.