Back in the Midwest, Part 2

Soooo...more successful midwestern gigs!

The absolute best part of this weekend was hearing the crowd respond every night when we played Hey Nineteen. The second verse begins, "Hey Nineteen, that's Aretha Franklin / She don't remember the Queen of Soul", and every time Greg sang that, the audience would go berserk. It was a wonderful moment.

Thursday: Cincinnati, Ohio.

Bogart's is a pretty important room in this part of the country. When I was in college, friends were always making the trip over to see bands play here, so the significance of being on stage at Bogart's cannot be understated.

Duke

Pre gig food. I'm not happy with the styrofoam and the plastic fork, though.

This gig was pretty good--our first time in Cincy brought 499 people out on a Thursday night. I had a good solo on Taking it to the Streets, but I was off for most of the rest of the show. It felt like my hands wouldn't work together on anything.

Friday: Indianapolis, Indiana.

We're probably not playing the Vogue again--as much as we collectively like the vibe of the room, the dressing room is HORRIBLE, and at this point we can draw more people than they can hold. Also, the dressing room...what the hell?  It's a joke.

Anyway...this was a semi-private/ticketed event. It sold out, though they lowered the cap from 1,100 to 600. We played it like it was a corporate gig, chugging along in no particular hurry, watching the ladies watch us. Lots of good looking people in front of us on this evening. Easy.

Saturday: Chicago, Illinois.

I remember playing the House of Blues here when it felt massive. Now, it's kind of an average room.

Tonight's attendance was 1,053, easily our biggest Chicago crowd ever, which felt awesome. Even with other options in town (Pearl Jam was playing Wrigley Field), we still brought over a thousand people, and gave them a great show!

Sunday: Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

We didn't have far to go today, so I was able to squeeze in a run to Northwestern University. Our hotel was in Skokie, due east of Evanston.

Lake Michigan

On to Milwaukee!

right across from the Bucks' new stadium

Turner Hall is a very old ballroom, partially restored (only enough to keep from caving in?). It looks pretty cool, though, kind of like an old roller coaster. One thing we hadn't ever encountered--the stage is angled towards the front, so downstage is essentially downhill.

The entire place is run by a pack of hipsters and one old guy. They do a good job!

A little pre-gig stroll through downtown.

The Bronze Fonz!

exterior of Turner Hall

pre gig dinner--burrito bar!

This gig...after Chicago, I was kind of ready to go home. Three nights in a row was fine for me, but this place was such a pleasant surprise, that I ended up having a really good time. The venue was cool, the audience as great (259 on a Sunday in a town where we've never played), the burritos were satisfying, the green room was fifteen times as big as the Vogue's...this was a good weekend of playing!

Back in the Midwest

More dates in the midwest.

Friday: We played a Habitat for Humanity fundraiser in Dublin, Ohio (home of Wendy's!). The gig was fine, pretty corporate feeling (complete with an overbearing handler). When we finished soundcheck, it was pouring outside, so we didn't get a chance to eat dinner, so we ate lots of bananas, trail mix, and chips and salsa.

I guess I didn't sleep too well the night before--I felt pretty wiped out the whole day, and couldn't summon much enthusiasm for the gig. Fortunately, it was one set, a couple of encores (actually, we played a couple of songs for an encore, and then had to go back and play one more as a second encore), and we were done.

These lights were a little too close, a little too focused, and a little too hot.

Saturday: From Columbus, we headed west to Indianapolis. The view on I-70 was clouds, corn, and soybeans.

We blew a trailer tire near Knightstown, Indiana.

boom

posing for pics

Monkeyboy's suitcase tried to run away

the cops showed up to make sure everything was cool

We played (for the third time) Mallow Run Winery just outside of Indianapolis. The stage doesn't sound that great, but it's an easy summer gig and our Indiana fans adore us, so no big deal.

This sucker sold out--two thousand people! It was a good crowd and a good gig, and we tried not to be too blasé after our massive audiences at Conner Prairie a couple of weeks previously. The show turned out to be one of our longest as of late, clocking in at just over two and a half hours.

We flew home Sunday morning, but we'll be right back out there with shows in Cincinnati (Thursday), Indianapolis (Friday), Chicago (Saturday), and Milwaukee (Sunday).

Wednesday

Once again, Scott Glazer asked me to join him at Blind Willie's for his monthly gig there. This time, we were joined by Mace Hibbard (sax), Nick Johnson (guitar), Geoff Hayden (keyboard), and Justin Chesarek (drums).

The band was in a good mood, and though I didn't feel like I played anything great, it was still fun. Mace's style is very different from mine, and I loved standing next to him while he unloaded long, creative lines. Great stuff!

Unfortunately, there wasn't much of a crowd there to see us (though there never seems to be). We had an audience of maybe four when we began, and it grew to maybe ten at the most. Blame it on the rain, or blame it on Wednesday night.

Atlanta Magazine

No gigs to speak of this weekend, but check out the big article about the Yacht Rock Revue in this month's issue of Atlanta Magazine!

http://www.atlantamagazine.com/great-reads/confessions-cover-band-yacht-rock-revue/

10,530

Yacht Rock put up big audience numbers this past weekend, with a sellout in Nashville (600 people), and two nights at Conner Prairie in Indianapolis (4,350 and 5,580). Impressive, no?

Thursday: We're still looking for the right room in Nashville. This room sounds great, but it's kind of small--we need a thousand seater with a good vibe. In the mean time, we play here--Top Golf in Nashville (they call the music room The Cowan). Load in, soundcheck, and then we hit some balls and hung out with our Nashville buddy, Jerry Roe.

We'd been off for almost two weeks, so things were a little rusty. I definitely had a few spots where I hoped that muscle memory would save me. For the most part, it was a pretty solid show, though.

The crowd was so-so. The people across the front line were, by and large, unenthusiastic, which didn't help us with the energy. Maybe 'cause it was a Thursday? Lots of blank stares. Not sure what was up with that.

Apparently, we broadcast on Facebook.

Friday: Road trip from Nashville to Indy. The midwest is alive with corn and soybeans all the way up I-65.

Conner Prairie is a giant outdoor concert venue in Fishers, Indiana, on the northeast side of Indianapolis. There's a very large covered stage at the bottom of a smoothly rising hill, creating a natural bowl for the audience. Night one was exceptional--one of my favorite gigs we've ever played. Everybody played up to this mega-gig, and the crowd was with us from the first note.

Saturday: We each had our own hotel rooms, so I slept for as long and as hard as I could.

Next on the agenda: a run. A couple of sights from East 96th Street.

Followed by lunch at my favorite Indy restaurant, Yat's, which now has vegetarian and vegan options! Woo!

spinach and mushroom étouffée

vegan white chili

Day two at Conner Prairie. I almost didn't want to play this gig because the previous night had been so magical. What if I couldn't get the mojo happening, and then I tried too hard, and then really sucked?

Lots of video from this gig. Dig it.




























We added a local horn section for is show, and I am happy to report that my horn charts had no errors!

Here's a better than usual outro solo on Taking it to the Streets:



And then it was over! We're off again for about two weeks, and then the regular gigging (and blogging) will resume. Stay tuned.

Something Different

Three gigs this past weekend.

Thursday: I had the opportunity to once again play with the Atlanta Latin Jazz Orchestra (under the leadership of Rob Opitz) at Venkman's. This month, I was back in the bari sax/bass clarinet chair. How many gigs have I played in this band? Eight? Ten? This one was, by far, the most comfortable. I've now played the charts enough that it only took a couple of times to bring each tune up to speed. On the bandstand, I felt very confident, and while my playing wasn't quite flawless, I was  really pleased with my performance.

Friday: Beatles gig! A few years ago, Yacht Rock was playing a Beatles show around once a month; these days, it's two or three times a year. This evening's show was all of Abbey Road, plus seven or eight other Beatle songs. Things were a little loose, a little rusty maybe, but we had a good time.

Video of the show:



Saturday: Back to Yacht Rock. We had a show at a casino in Lake Charles, LA, so we flew to Lafayette in the early afternoon and then took a limo van to the gig.

The travel was the toughest part about it. The rented gear was exceptional, the stage sounded great, and we were only contracted to play from 8:15-9:15 PM! Easy!

nice backdrop!

The crowd was predictably subdued (old, seated, polite, unsure of exactly what they were looking at), but by all accounts, everybody liked us, so it ended up feeling like a corporate show in a hotel ballroom.

Ganesh subbed for Mark Cobb and Scott Sheriff subbed for Mark Bencuya. Both were excellent!

Sunday: The travel home was a pain in the ass. The Lafayette, LA airport is terrible--it's DIY air travel. Do your best to avoid it.

Easy

Easiest gig I've had in a while: Yacht Rock played a Sunday evening hour-long set at Ventana's, fulfilling a raffle prize for The Giving Kitchen. I brought one saxophone, flute, piccolo, and some hand percussion, and we did the gig "unplugged" style. Piece of cake!

EWI Cherries

Five gigs in a row! Yacht Rock played a stretch of five shows that ran from Friday of last week through Tuesday of this week--very different for us in that we rarely play public shows on Sunday night, and never on Monday. Nevertheless, every show was very well attended, which maybe signals that runs longer than our usual Thursday-Saturday plans are now possible. 

New fans (Myrtle Beach, Sea Island), and old fans who hadn't seen us in many moons (Raleigh, Charleston). Lots of people who'd never seen an EWI before. 

Friday: Park Tavern in Atlanta. As I've said before, it's nice to play a big gig at home. This one was 1,200 people, and they were moderately rabid. I had a pretty good show except for Arthur's Theme, which I completely ruined--for some reason, I started the string part on F major instead of D minor, played two more wrong chords, and threw up. Actually, I didn't want to throw up, but I just couldn't figure out why what I was playing didn't work, but didn't sound completely wrong (should've been D minor instead of F major, so the F and the A were right...). I had to give up on it for a second and wait for muscle memory to get me back on track. Anyway, I sucked real bad for that song, but the rest of the gig was solid.

Saturday: Raleigh. The ride from Atlanta felt like it took all day--around seven hours with the lunch stop and gas stops.

We hadn't played the Lincoln Theatre in several years. I remember it being small and kind of crummy, and it's still that way (in spite of the hip mural on the side of the building. 

So...something like 650 people showed up! (800 capacity). Woah! Last time there was 100+, so this was an excellent surprise. We had a very good, entertaining show, too; I felt really connected to what was going on, so maybe I'm getting over some burnout from the past month or so. The stage is nice and dead sounding, too, which makes the in ear mixes sound great.

I'd guess we'll be passing through here a bit more regularly now, maybe connected to Asheville,Charlotte, and South Carolina?

Sunday: On to the House of Blues in Myrtle Beach. Another one to check off the list!

Houses of Blueses we have now played: New Orleans, Chicago, Myrtle Beach, Orlando, San Diego, Dallas, Houston, and Anaheim.

Houses of Blueses we have not yet played: Las Vegas, Cleveland, and Boston.

another HoB, another fake water tower

These Houses of the Blueses are all kind of the same, but I like them--plenty of room on stage and plenty of green room space. We had a good gig here, especially considering it was a Sunday night. The room was pretty full, but we suspect there were a fair number of ticket giveaways, mostly based on the blank looks by some in the audience.

Speaking of blank looks: if you're bored with what's happening on stage, please take your fat ass and move away from the front row. For a while, the "What the hell am I looking at?" expressions were kind of funny, but after twenty minutes or so of people leaning on the barricade, acting like this was the most miserable night of their lives, I was starting to get a bit annoyed. Go back to the fucking Olive Garden if that's what makes you happy.

We debut two new songs (for us, obviously) tonight:  Lady by Little River Band, and I Love a Rainy Night by Eddie Rabbitt. We wobbled a little bit on Lady, but I Love a Rainy Night was solid. Both are really good adds.

The encore was Hold the Line and Taking it to the Streets. I had one of my better, more coherent solos on the latter. Sometimes I feel like I'm just standing there throwing up on myself until the band shuts it down.

Monday: Woah! Public show on a Monday night, and another place we haven't played in many years! We rolled into Charleston for a gig at Music Farm. Everything was way ahead of schedule until we found out we had the times wrong, and then everybody was crunched to eat and change before showtime. I managed to squeeze in about an hour of warm up and dinner at the Thai place around the corner.

Once again, the attendance was way beyond expectations, with 625 in a room that holds 800--on a Monday! It felt plenty full, and all of those people soaked up some of the sound in a very boomy room.

We broadcast the show on Facebook Live. Both of the new songs were much improved (and very well received!), and I had a good solo on Biggest Part of Me (around 51:32).



Tuesday: One more gig! We were hired to play a concert at the Sea Island Beach Club. The stage was set up in between the back lawn and the dunes. Scenic, but very windy.

All of the gear was unloaded from the trailer to a box truck, driven to the beach, and unloaded onto the stage.

This gig started slow, but after about an hour, people finally started moving closer to the stage, and the night ended with an extra long and pretty aggressive photo/selfie session. No big solos to speak of on this one, which was a good thing because I was fried by the time we finished.

Once they let us go, we cased everything back up. From there, back on the box truck, driven back to the front of the building, and Kip and Zach repacked the trailer. We then drove a little of an hour back to Savannah to spend the night. It was a long day.

No gigs to speak of this week, but Friday, July 13, we'll be playing Abbey Road and more Beatles at Venkman's in Atlanta. It should be a really good change of pace for us. I'm looking forward to it.