C+C, and A Whole Lotta Indian Food

This was a long one by Yacht Rock Revue standards--three shows in California, two days off in Salt Lake City, a travel day, and then three shows in Colorado. 

Friday: We flew from home (Atlanta) to Los Angeles to meet up with our gear (which had been driven west earlier in the week).

After a nap, I watched the movie about Mr. Rogers, Won't You Be My Neighbor. Excellent stuff, even on this tiny screen!

Two nights at the El Rey!...

...but first, a short run around Beverly Hills!

There's an Indian restaurant across the street from the El Rey. I ate there before both shows on this trip. I think Samuel L. Jackson was in there on the second night. Otherwise, it was a guy who looked exactly like him who gave me a look like "Don't you DARE stop and say anything to me."

Night one was a little clunky for me. We added two new songs--Even the Nights Are Better and Tiny Dancer. I always need a half dozen attempts of playing my parts with the band before I can be comfortable, so it felt in both cases like I was chasing the music. We also hadn't played together in a week, so there was some rust there, too. It was enough to get the machine up and running, though.

We were super damn tired by the time this one ended. Fortunately, we did not have to pack up and load out!

When we finally headed for the van, somebody was shooting a car commercial in front of the theater.

There was a waxy Robert Pattinson (on the right) in the lobby of our hotel.

I went to bed at 1:30 AM, which felt like 4:30 AM. Long day.

Saturday: Slept like a dead guy, then went for a run. We were right down the street from the Hollywood Bowl, so I ran by it.

I made a left and headed up the hill, but ran out of sidewalk. When I crossed the street, the intersection was the end of Mulholland (a street I've heard of!), so I ran/walked up Mulholland.

Not the best place to run--no sidewalks! So I headed back down the hill on the other side, passed Hollywood High School (I guess I never thought there was such a thing in real life), and headed back to the hotel.

After lunch, I took a short lap around the area.

many a hit record has been recorded here

Jimmy Kimmel Live is just a stage in their parking lot

The Chinese Theatre. Star Wars opened here. Nuff said.

funny internet stuff from Friday night

Night two at the El Rey was, for the most part, much better. Sleep, food, and one gig down helped, and the sold out room gave us extra energy. Special guests for the evening: Elliot Lurie of Looking Glass, Peter Beckett of Player, Matthew Wilder, and Joe Sumner (Gordon Sumner's son).

The two new songs were better for me (though still not nearly perfect), and I recall a moment in Tiny Dancer when we hammering it and I thought "Holy shit! This sounds just like the record!" and the emotion of the song really hit me. On the other hand, I was so mad by the time I'd finished fucking up Minute by Minute that I thought I was going to have to leave the stage. Also an emotional moment, I guess.

All in all, though, this one had a lot of fire behind it--we put on a great show for a packed house.

Sunday: Pete told me that he and Nick had hiked in a canyon around the corner from our hotel, so I thought I'd stay off Mulholland and check this out instead. I think I took a wrong turn going up the hill, though, because the trail got really narrow, and I was ducking under branches and crawling up inclines on my hands and knees.

 I finally reached the top of the ridge and headed down a much more organized path.

And then, off to San Diego! But first, a shitty Mexican lunch.

The Music Box in San Diego is a cool venue.

The lighting guy reeeeeaaaaaallly loved his haze machine, and at some points I wondered if I was even visible in the cloud. Also, this light was blinding.

Surprisingly, this was another great show--no big letdown after Saturday night's big gig, and the crowd was tremendous, especially on a Sunday night. I am also happy to report that I had none of the wireless microphone problems that I'd had the last time we were here. Note for Future Dave: select microphone frequency AA next time--it's clear.

Monday: The van and trailer headed east, so we a few days to kill. I went for a long run before our flight from San Diego to Salt Lake City.

Our flight was delayed by a couple of hours, but we got upgraded. Free bananas!

Salt Lake City--went for another run, ate at an Indian restaurant, went to bed early, slept like a dead guy.

Tuesday: nothing to do all day. I walked to the campus of the University of Utah and went swimming at the pool.

After lunch (more Indian food!), I detoured over to see the Mormon Temple.

Got it. Seen it. The rest of the day consisted of a run and more Indian food (not the other way around, thank you very much).

Wednesday: A run, some breakfast...

And then the van picked us up to drive to Colorado.

Amazing scenery in the Utah desert.

I drove today, so two bananas and three oranges.

We spent the night in Grand Junction, Colorado. The usual stuff: a run, dinner at an Indian restaurant. When I returned to our room, though, my running clothes smelled so bad that I had to use the hotel laundry.

Thursday: Scenes from my run.

Just for the record, I ate Indian food for lunch.

The trek to Aspen! More driving, more beautiful scenery!

This evening's show was at the Belly Up in Aspen. We had to set up early so that they could show the Thursday night NFL game first.

what a sweetie!

the last time we were here, these hills were covered in snow

Another packed show! This place holds 450, and if I remember correctly, we had 415. Pretty cool, especially on a Thursday night where we've only played once before.

Friday: a little run before we left for Boulder.

our hotel

wildfire burn

The Boulder Theater show was tremendous. It was nice to stretch out on stage after behind jammed into the Belly Up. The room was once again very full, and very excited to see us, we played well, and I almost got Even the Nights Are Better and Minute by Minute completely right.

Saturday: After Friday's show, we went ahead and drove to Denver to spend the night so that we could spend two nights in the same hotel. Sooooo...I went for a run, and then went to a hipster Indian restaurant for lunch.

just a statue in a parking lot

Last gig! The Ogden Theatre in Denver. What a neat room! Things sounded really good in my ears, and we almost sold this one out. I can't believe how many people showed up--it was kind of amazing. We played pretty well, but it also felt like we were getting tired.

Sunday: We made it! Denver-->Atlanta. 3 hours home.

Santa Fe

Right around a year ago, Yacht Rock Revue played a birthday party in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was, as we remember, a wild gig with little sleep and lots of weather, plus so mediocre backline (you can relive it here!). Guess what--we just did it all again.

This year, we lucked into a 10 AM flight, so the wakeup wasn't quite so painful. Also, this dude's feet were no longer sweaty by the time we boarded. On the one hand, I'm kinda like, "It's your feet, and I don't care", 'cause I don't have a weird phobia about other people's feet.  On the other hand, people were weaving around his bare feet like he had ten little cobras for toes, and I would think that you might at least not hang 'em out there in the aisle.

On with the show...flew from Atlanta to Albuquerque (slept for about half of that). Crash landed (at least, it felt like it, and a couple of people sort of screamed when we slammed into the ground, bounced up, and then touched down). The crash woke me up. We ate lunch at the airport (I had an outstanding veggie sandwich).

From there, we collected our suitcases and my gear, hopped in a limo van, and rode the hour and fifteen minutes to Santa Fe, arriving just as the local crew was preparing the stage.  After a couple of hours of setting up gear (at least the card reader on the top keyboard worked), we headed into town to kill a few hours.

Back to the gig to change clothes and brush teeth.

The weather was chilly when we set up, but the sun came out in the afternoon and warmed everything up to the mid 70s--perfect. Unfortunately, the sun went down and the temperature dropped to the high 50s. My hands were too stiff to play anything cool--it's kind of like eating without teeth (I'm guessing). The cold caught a couple of our guys off guard. I knew about it, but it didn't save me. Maybe I should add a space heater to the rental gear.

Overall, the gig was fine. It was a birthday party, but it felt like a corporate gig. We played to a small, well behaved crowd that didn't offer much of a reaction to any particular song (lots of quiet between songs). It was easy and painless, but nothing too memorable (other than being cold).

The encore ended around 10:20, and by 10:40, we were in the van headed back to Albuquerque (and our hotel). We checked in around midnight. I took a shower, read my book, rolled over, and it was 4:40--time to get up.

5 AM lobby call. Ouch. I slept the entire flight home. One of my best efforts.

For some reason, I'd agreed to play a church gig this Sunday evening. As a change of pace to what I've been doing, it actually wasn't bad. I played flute for the whole thing, and a woman in the congregation came up afterwards to tell me how much she enjoyed it. "Do you play in one of the symphonies around here?" "Uh, no. I play in a band called the Yacht Rock Revue." She'd never heard of it. Ok!

After

The day after the big gig at Chastain, Yacht Rock was in Asheville, North Carolina to play a condensed version of the revival at a place called Salvage Station. It's hard to get excited about the next gig, and this one was a strange mix of a park and a junkyard (hence the name), and the vibe was kind of confusing, and then Asheville is always a strange mix of upper class and jam band noodle dancers. I don't know, man.

Not too bad of a gig, though. The stage sounded decent, and though the crowd was on the smaller side, they were really into it. We brought Elliot, Albert, and Peter along, and the people were suitably impressed. Plus, the show was 7-9, which is about all that I was in the mood for.

Also, the pre-gig food was outstanding! I had some kind of vegan bowl that really hit the spot.

About an hour into the show, I started to notice that my keyboards were getting a little slippery, and then I noticed the drops of something on the keyboard screen and my setlist. Great. The haze machine (to make the lights show up better) was set right behind me, and was spitting fog juice all over my gear, and there really wasn't anything to do about it until the gig was over. I used a towel to wipe off some of it, but there will still be a clean up when I get home. Not happy about this.

my keyboard screen

my computer screen

the offending machine

Revival of the Fittest

The biggest Yacht Rock gig of the year is the Yacht Rock Revival in Atlanta. This year's show took place at Chastain Amphitheater, and we were fortunate to sell it out (6,500 people)! It was an incredible evening. In addition to the band and the guests, we had Ganesh Giri Jaya on percussion, Keisha and Kourtney Jackson on background vocals, and a horn section of Rob Opitz (trumpet), Bryan Lopes (tenor sax), and Richard Sherrington (trombone).

The first block of ten songs had been grouped together at the top of the past six setlists, so we were very familiar with the pace of the opening of the show. At the revival, this definitely felt like the spot where I was able to relax, as most of my major playing was finished at the conclusion of Taking it to the Streets.

Rosanna was all adrenaline--would tonight be a night when the EWI went berserk? two-thirds of the horns were basically sight-reading the charts--would they read it correctly (did I write something stupid?)? would the horns get out of the song in the right place? All good. Everything was fine.

You Make My Dreams--fine.

Heart to Heart--everything was good, up until the middle of the solo, when I missed a couple of the high Bs. The rest was accurate, though. Still riding the adrenaline.

My Old School--played bari sax on this. I tried to read a chart off an iPad and not look like I was reading a chart. Successful.

Lido--fine.

Baker Street--the spotlight is on me. Early in the song, my brain was swamped with the thought of family, friends, and neighbors who were seeing us for maybe the first, second, or third time. It was an emotional moment, and then I had to try and remember where I was in the sax part, and then I had to try not to fall over backwards. Earlier in the week, I realized that the delayed string synth part in the verse changes right before the prechorus. I forgot it in the first verse. I spent the second verse trying to sing the interval that it changes to in my head. I ended up guessing. Got it right.

Love a Rainy Night--glad to be through the Baker Street moment. I coast on this one, singing on the chorus and swinging a tambourine.

Late in the Evening--big horn part. Did we play enough of it at soundcheck to make it solid? Ehhh...

Don't Stop--easy. I sing along in this (I'm not assigned a vocal part on this one), and I wouldn't want to hear what I was yodeling. We were having a good time by this point.

Taking It to the Streets--lots of internal/ego pressure here, trying to impress the aforementioned family, friends, neighbors, but also the horn section with a billion notes and endless slick ideas on that outro solo. Things were going pretty well, and then at some point, I felt like my embouchure kind of cramped up. I mean, it didn't, but in the middle I just needed to take the horn out of my face and swallow and take a good breath, but there was no time for that, and then my solo kind of went to shit. If I could've kept going at the same pace that I'd started, I would've been satisfied with it.

Time to relax!

Elliot's stuff--easy. If I usually play the horn parts on Brandy, but there's a horn section, do I still play them? If I don't, will I feel so uncoordinated that I won't be able to keep the organ part together? The answer is yes. Just turn the synth with the horn part down.

Albert's stuff--easy. Not much to do. Obviously, Albert gets the cowbell part on Don't Fear the Reaper, so I took the oft overlooked guiro part (beat 2 of every measure--it's great). I think I missed one because I was concentrating on my background vocal.

Peter's stuff--got it. He likes to do the James Bond lick at the end of The Night Owls, and we simplified it by having only Monkeyboy do it (trying to time it between me, Bencuya, and Monkeyboy was really difficult). Everything else was cool.

Carlisi's stuff--I was backstage, sitting on a couch, looking at my phone. Nothing for me to do. The stars next his name mean that we play it a half step down (he tunes his guitars down a half step).

Denny Laine's stuff--highly anticipated. I played Listen to What the Man Said on soprano, and I was told to eat the mic a bit because it's a bit softer. I jammed the mic right up to the bell of the horn, and it was painfully loud at the show.

My plan was to play the opening stuff (up to the first verse), and the solo just like it is on the record, and then play my own stuff in between. Fine. Got to the solo, got excited, tripped a little bit. Could've been better.

Silly Love Songs and Let Me Roll It were fine, though it felt like the latter was going to fall apart at some points. 

I messed up the end of Jet in rehearsal, so I was really worried that I would repeat my mistake. Got the end right, but I played a wrong note in the middle of the song. Faaaaaaaaaak.

Encores!

I missed one of the piccolo rips in Live and Let Die.

I play organ on Oh, Atlanta!, except there's no organ on the record, so...can I play any wrong notes? Or, is everything I'm playing a wrong note because it doesn't exist? Cool song. G would've been a lot easier than F#, Mr. Carlisi.

Lady--no sweat. 

Rich Girl--started in A with Elliot, then moved up to F with Nick. Here it is in C, courtesy of 1976.

Africa--got it.

Hold the Line. Carlisi was able to handle my guitar part in the album key, so I had a little synth part in the verse and we finished up the night before the curfew.

If you weren't fortunate enough to make the gig, we broadcast the whole thing on Facebook. You can watch it here:



Some cool pics:

photo by Zach Wetzel

photo by Emily Butler

photo by Emily Butler

photo by Emily Butler

photo by Emily Butler