FLA

The Yacht Rock Revue spent last weekend in Florida (central and north, I should say). The weather was perfect, which means we probably escaped right before the heat and humidity arrived.

Friday: Orlando! We were once again at the House of Blues at Disney. I still wish we were closer to the city, but daaaaaammmnn this room sounds good. Like, so good that I would almost forget to play my parts because I was just listening.

I went for a short run before the gig, and there were people lined up around the building.

Aaaaaaaand...holy cow! There were something like 1,100 people at our gig. It was packed! According to Pete, it was technically a sell out because the floor was completely full, but there was some kind of thing where they could've made some more room in the balcony?...I don't know. It was a frickin' TON of people, they loved it, and the room sounded fantastic. I might also say that we collectively collectively kicked ass. This was the most fun I've had on a Yacht Rock gig since our show in LA a month ago. I should've high five'd myself. I high five'd Mark Cobb instead.

Saturday: The money gig...some kind of fundraiser for a private school in Tallahassee.

I went for a run before this one, too, because we had three and a half hours to kill, and I was pretty speedy on the ol' track, if I do say so myself.

Meanwhile, Kip and Nick plotted the staging and input list for next week's Talking Heads shows. There's also a Garfield rendering by Mark Cobb, a dog made from the number 25 (Pete's contribution), and Mark Dannells' caricature of me.

This one could have been brutal.

1. We were in a tent, so the sound was not so good, especially compared to the previous evening's.
2. We'd been there for hours, sequestered in the AV room of the library, so we were dulled by boredom (also, the provided food was very unappetizing).
3. Our start time was pushed an hour late, so we played two hours straight. For the first forty-five minutes, people were in the adjoining tent, watching FSU lose to Michigan in basketball.

However...there was a plethora of hot moms on the dance floor. It made it all bearable.

Sunday: Lunch in Tallahassee at some hipster Mexican place before we left town. I had two big bowls of black beans and rice. It really hit the spot, even though that quantity of beans going into my body probably scared some of the other guys.

Our first show in Pensacola was at Vinyl Music Hall, a room (if you're familiar with Atlanta) of approximately Smith's Olde Bar size, maybe slightly smaller. I didn't have particularly high expectations. On the third floor was a massive green room with a giant TV, pool table, and ping pong.

The load in was pretty easy, and though the stage was small, we were set up and sound checked pretty quickly. After dinner, I walked down to the pier to witness the sunset.

Back to the gig...

All in all, not bad! The people who showed up (maybe 150?) were pretty into it (though it did feel like there were quite a few music nerds there to see us), and we had fun. I'd play here again. Good energy for a Sunday. Hopefully if we come back, we won't have a guy doing a "live painting" like we did on this night.

Monday: Five or six hours in the van. Truck stop hacky-sack. What the hell?

A Quick Spin Through the Midwest, Then Unplugged at Home

Last weekend was maybe a little different from our usual routing, as we began north of Chicago, then hit Indianapolis, headed north again to a private party in Lafayette, Indiana, and then flew home to play an Unplugged show at Venkman's in Atlanta. As for me, it was sleep on the plane, sleep in the van, sleep in the hotel room.

Thursday: Where in the hell is Palatine, Illinois? North of Chicago--north of Evanston, too. We played a St. Patrick's Day kickoff on Thursday night at Durty Nellie's. 

Kind of a strange gig--the stage sounded good, the crowd (maybe 200?) was solid and enthusiastic, but I think the Thursday night/unfamiliar town thing got to me. I guess I could never shake the "Wait-what day is it and where are we?" feeling. From what I recall, we played pretty well--no disasters.

Friday: I-65 between Chicago and Indianapolis. Mellencamp to the max. Rain on the scarecrow, blood on the plow, little pink houses--all that shit.

Back at The Vogue for another packed show. This one had been sold out for months. We are folk heroes in Indianapolis.

Pretty great show for our people, I would say. It sounded good, felt good, and the vibes were excellent in the room.

I shared the hotel room with Monkeyboy, and we slept like we were dead after this one. Neither of us moved until 12:30 PM.

Saturday: I'd been to Lafayette, Indiana on other time in my life, probably twenty-five years ago to see a jazz concert with Craig Handy, Lee Konitz, and Joe Lovano. I remember Craig Handy was so out of tune that he had to stop in the middle of a solo and crank his mouthpiece. Not relative to this blog, really, but that's all I remember. Also, Lovano was really cool at that moment.

The room we were in was an event space in a nearly abandoned (looking) strip shopping center. The stage sounded good, but I don't even now how to describe the building. Sad, like a midwestern winter day? We ate at Arni's (an Indiana restaurant chain) on the other side of the shopping center, and it took about an hour for our food to come out--somebody at Perdue U. had ordered twenty pizzas.

Anyway, this was somebody's birthday party. Especially after the high of last night, this one was a much more low energy gig. We could've/should've watched The Empire Strikes Back to pass the time. Also, we faked our way through I Will Survive. Big fun.

Sunday: We trudged back home, regrouping at Venkman's to play an Unplugged show on our spare gear (our main stuff was on the way home from Indiana). I enjoyed the vibe of this one, relaxed and silly at times, and the off center approaches to some of the songs kept us on our toes. It was nice to relax at the end of this weekend's run.

One More for the Giving Kitchen

At the Giving Kitchen event earlier this year, some folks with extremely deep pockets bid on a private shows with Yacht Rock, and the winning numbers were in the $26,000 range. We played one of those shows last night for one of the winners, US Foods.

There was a cajon...

...views of Atlanta on a beautiful day...

...and a giant check from US Foods for $50,000 to The Giving Kitchen, an organization who provides supplemental aide to those in the restaurant community.

How about that! Plus the gig was super easy--we played it in the "unplugged" style, so I brought a saxophone, a flute, a piccolo, and a bag of hand percussion. Easy load in/out, and home before 9 PM. Not too shabby.

Cruisin' Again

Yacht Rock was invited (for the sixth year in a row) to perform as a musical guest on the Sail Across the Sun Cruise. For the past five years, the band Train has headlined this cruise, but they are stepping aside, leaving us a decent chance of not playing on this boat anymore. I think I've had enough of playing on the ships, so if this is the last one, so be it.

Wednesday: the ship leaves from New Orleans, but we flew into Baton Rouge to save some money. I slept the whole way--I'm an excellent sleeper.

The van we'd arranged to drive us to the port was more of a limo than a church van, so we were forced to pile most of our luggage up on the floor. Not very comfortable for the ninety miles to New Orleans.

 The view from my cabin balcony.

We left New Orleans around 5:30 PM.

After a nap, a run, and dinner, we checked out Christopher Cross' set in the theatre. Great band--the sax player, Justin Vasquez, was fantastic. Also, Keith Carlock (of Steely Dan!) on drums. Wow!

Thursday: I slept for as long as I could because I like to sleep, and it helps to eat up some of the free time. Our first set was at noon on the pool deck.

This may have been our best set on the boat--the weather was good and the crowd was great. We played with a lot of enthusiasm. Also, all of the gear worked (foreshadowing!).

I caught some more music this night on the boat. First, the Easy Stars All-Stars played really slick arrangements of Beatles and Michael Jackson tunes. I couldn't get enough of these guys!

And they threw this in...

After that, we headed up to the pool deck to catch Jason Bonham playing Led Zeppelin. The guitarist,  Jimmy Sakurai, was sooooo spot on in his Jimmy Page imitation. Imitation maybe isn't the right word--maybe obsession? Check out his website here. Freaky!

Other than that, nap, run, food, bed. The usual.

Friday: We reached our only foreign port--Cozumel, Mexico, today, and it was raining. $3 for a poncho.

We've eaten at La Choza just about every time we've ever been in Cozumel. You can't go wrong.

we're looking at a turtle (up against the wall between Monkeyboy and Pete) eating a piece of ham

the view from my balcony on this fine day

This evening's gig was in the atrium, and though we always hope for an epic show, tonight's gig was loud and sloppy, ending with my EWI refusing to stay transposed (which made the Rosanna solo a disaster). No pics. It was rough. I don't think any of us enjoyed being on stage.

Saturday: Woke up to the sound of thunder...we were pushing directly across the Gulf of Mexico through a thunderstorm. Thankfully the water and wind was calm--just rain and thunder and lightning.

This day began with a meet and greet/autograph session, an hour and a half of people walking by our table asking us to sign posters and pose for pictures. After that, nap, run, eat, and wait--our last show of the cruise wasn't scheduled to begin until 11:45 in the Atrium.

offshore oil wells in the Gulf

Our last show was packed! Unfortunately, this room doesn't sound good. We pushed ourselves through it. At the end of the night, the production guys wouldn't let us play an encore, they got booed when they began taking the PA apart, and Nick and one of the guys got into a shouting match.

Most of us did a lap around the boat before calling it a night--I'm not sure which band this was, but they were the guys with the djembe player who loved to yell "MAKE SOME NOISE!" into every open microphone. So obnoxious.

Sunday: Time to go home, and not a moment too soon.

Staying Local

Back to back Yacht Rock Revue gigs in Atlanta--a nice break from our now customary weekends away from home.

Friday: Buckhead Theatre. This place is starting to grow on me now that Live Nation has taken it over and tried to make it into a legitimate music venue. The sound is getting better, and they now have a local crew to drag your gear to and from the parking lot. 

We added Say Say Say this week. Much like a few weeks ago when we added Fleetwood Mac's Little Lies, I was initially a bit disappointed. Ugh--another eighties song. When are we going to add You Make Loving Fun? However, just like Little Lies, this one is fun to play, so I'm cool with it. Plus, whenever we do a gig with horns, this one will make Rob giddy with delight.

I Just Wanna Stop by Gino Vanelli made a comeback. We played this one for a while in the first couple of years of the band, but it went away soon after I started playing keyboards. I never was able to do a good job on the string part, so I started over with a new chart this time. Getting the voicings correct took a lot of time to figure out and then get into my hands.

Ernie Watts played the sax solo. I'd show you my transcription of what he played, but I think it's a pretty lame solo, so I don't play that one note for note--I just follow the general idea of it.

This gig was pretty slammin'! It was sold out (yay!), and from what I could tell, they were generally an excellent crowd with good energy. I had a really good time on this one, and we played really well.

Mark Cobb nearly pulled off his most daring Africa drum fill ever, a phrase so devastatingly hip that it might have buckled every knee in the room...but he dropped a stick and we all survived.

At the end of the night, I pointed to my cases and said, "These are ready to go" and two crew guys brought them out to my truck. It never gets old!

Here's video of the show:



Here are some pictures by one of our favorite photographers, Emily Butler.

Home by 12:30 AM! Woo!


Saturday: We played a charity event in Duluth, GA--our second year doing this gig, a pretty vanilla two set show in a country club. Super nice people, but compared to the night before, not very exciting. We may have been watching Star Wars on the back half of the stage, and I may have quoted to cantina band theme in a flute solo, which I may have played during the cantina scene in the movie.

I did have a good solo on Turn Your Love Around, so I guess my night wasn't completely brain dead.