February 2024

Friday, February 9, 2024: Ft. Wayne, Indiana. 

Early flight, small plane, decent nap.

Ft. Wayne's airport has a space for really nice auto overhauls. Last year when we came through it was an early 1980s truck; this time it's this pretty Corvette.

We were in town early enough to go find lunch before the load in, so our van landed at an industrial building that had been repurposed as a food court. This burrito was every bit as bland as you'd expect food in the midwest to be. Hans can tell you about it.

I thought it was going to be cold and miserable, but my run had pretty nice weather.

Dinner. Some kind of veggie burger and fries. Totally acceptable.

Our show for this evening was at The Clyde Theatre, which is owned and maintained by Sweetwater (a musical instrument supply company).

Sweetwater even has a gear vending machine in the lobby!

Pretty decent show! We were all really tired, but we got through it.

Saturday, February 10, 2024: Nashville, Indiana. Today's van ride was three hours long. We stopped in a shopping center in Greenwood for lunch, and Zach, Hans, and I ate in this Mexican restaurant with all these wood carved seats and...other things. Decorations? Olé.

This evening's show was at the Brown County Music Center. Pretty new, and really nice. This was kind of a hometown show for Nick and Pete, as we are very close to Columbus, Indiana.

Pete's knee brace. He messed up his knee when we were on stage in Florida, and as he waits for it to heal, he's using this to keep it from getting any worse.

Seen on today's run.

A birthday cake for Greg and Ganesh, courtesy of the Anchorheads.

Good show here!

When I was assembling my horn before soundcheck, the neck of my tenor slid out of the bell and landed on the floor. I didn't realize it at the time, but the octave key bent slightly, causing it to sometimes work fine, and sometimes not really work (almost like there was a major leak at the top of the horn!). I spent the first six or seven songs trying to figure out what was going on, and then once I remembered the next hitting the ground, I was able to bend it back in place well enough to play the show.

We flew home from Indianapolis Sunday morning, and the Indy airport had a basketball court set up in the atrium to highlight the NBA All Star game being in town.

Tuesday, February 13, 2024: Boston, Massachusetts.  Before we'd even finished the gigs in Indiana, most of us were already concerned about the possibility of bad weather in New England, and by Monday, the news reports of a nor'easter forced us to switch to an earlier flight. 

When we landed in Boston, it was raining steadily...

...and by the time we reached the venue, it was already changing over to snow.

This place was a cool spot to hang out, though. The MGM Music Hall is connected directly to Fenway Park, and had lots of music and sports memorabilia.

The room itself was much bigger than I'd anticipated! Kind of weird that it's situated just down the street from the Boston House of Blues.

By 2 PM, the rain/snow had completely stopped, and our gig was spared.

This is a very nice dressing room, by the way.

Nice room!

Since the weather abated, I was able to squeeze in a run. Boston is a pretty good place to run, but my phone and GPS watch get completely messed up when I need directions.

Back to the gig.

The vegetarian options in catering were simple but effective!

This was some kind of lemon cake. Fantastic.

It was a looooooong day, but we finally got to the gig--a private thing for a tech company.

We spent the night at the Verb Hotel (in the same neighborhood as Fenway), and I unwound from the day with a little Steely Dan on the record player.

The next morning, the weather was completely gone, and we flew home without any delays.

 

Friday, February 23, 2024: Alpharetta, Georgia. I got a last minute call to sub on the Bumpin' the Mango gig for a sick friend.

It was a long, loud gig--three one hour long long sets from eight to midnight. We were on wedges, and the keyboardist had his keyboard so loud on our side of the stage that I couldn't hear much of anything else--I was definitely inaudible to him, and probably anybody else around us, so I jammed ear plugs into my ears (at least I could hear myself that way) and did the best I could.

Tuesday, February 27, 2024: Atlanta, Georgia. We played a private gig at Mercedes Benz Stadium for the company that owns Arby's, Jimmy John's, Dunkin' Donuts, and several other fast food brands. The gig was in the Delta Sky Club at the stadium. I got lost inside the building and did a lap around the field before I found it (remarkably, nobody ever stopped me to ask where I was supposed to be!). My poor sense of direction struck again.

My big excitement of the day was that I repaired the bite plate on my tenor mouthpiece. It had popped off when I was washing the mouthpiece. I dipped it in boiling water to soften it so it would fit back in the pocket on top, and dabbed a little bit of super glue to hold it in place. Good as new!

I also had a repairman go through both horns to catch the little leaks that have developed over the past couple of months, including my bent octave key!

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.