September was busy!
September 1, 2023: Selbyville, DE. The band flew into Washington, DC and hopped in the vans. This day's gig was in Delaware, so there was a little bit of a drive to get there.
Keisha and Kourtney tried to add a foam mattress to Keisha's bench in our van.
The Freeman Stage at Selbyville got the bananas right! These are a perfect ripeness. In fact, this picture should be on our rider. So many times, we get bananas that are much too green to be eaten. I take it personally.
The previous two times that we've played at this stage it's rained (last time was the day after we'd gotten wet in Asbury Park, and my EWI went nuts with all the moisture), so a warm, sunny day was a welcome sight.
September 2, 2023: Silver Spring, MD. There's a Fillmore here--we played a show here years ago, and I'd forgotten that this place existed. I think it was either when we were transitioning out of The Hamilton in DC, or maybe we couldn't get into The Hamilton when we were coming through the area.
Not too bad of a gig. This is one of those places where they turn the air conditioner on full blast and make the room sixty degrees with the expectation that when the audience arrives, their collective body heat will bring the temperature back to a reasonable number. I would say that we didn't quite get enough people in to accomplish that, but it wasn't awful. Other than that--nothing memorable.
We did try and tack Margaritaville on to the front of Pina Colada, but it was so weird and short and half-assed that I don't think anyone in the crowd noticed.
September 3, 2023: Asbury Park, NJ. Back to The Stone Pony to end the summer. The stage was in full sunlight, and for some reason, the local crew guys opted to not put up this curtain until after we'd set up and sound checked, and let our gear cook for too long. I was NOT HAPPY ABOUT IT.
The gig was pretty great, though. Jimmy Buffett died a few days previously, so we played
Margaritaville with Greg Lee and Ganesh sharing the vocals, and Nick handling the little steel drum/harmonica thing in the middle. You can see a video of it
here.
September 5, 2023: Atlanta, GA. Back home for a few days, so we squeezed in an overdub session at Nick's house for the next album of originals. Nick's got this nifty new microphone that lights up.
September 6, 2023: Marietta, GA. I wrote a horn arrangement for the new album and made an audio demo to submit.
And then as soon as I'd put my microphone and instruments away, I got another idea for the same song, so I started over.
September 8, 2023: Denver, CO. We flew to Denver the night before--it's a newer policy to not fly this far west and then play a show on the same day if it's avoidable, so here we are, in this hotel with an extremely long hallway.
September 9, 2023: Denver, CO. Back at the Mission Ballroom. Great venue!
They even have their own hipster coffee guy backstage.
September 10, 2023: Aspen, CO. Back at the Belly Up. I don't think anybody in the band is ever enthusiastic about playing this room, though it's fine once the show starts.
This is another one of those places where they freeze you at soundcheck. Not too bad today, though.
The next morning, we got up, drove back to Denver, and flew home for a few days.
September 14, 2023: Mohegan Sun, CT. Back on the Kenny Loggins tour. We set up our stuff backstage while the Loggins band was sound checking, and I noticed that their guitar player was practicing the sax solo for
Heart to Heart, so I took a quick pass around the back and noticed that Justin, their sax player, was not around. Shortly there after, Nick came by and asked if I would be interested in sitting in with them. HOLY SHIT. Yeah, of course. So, off to soundcheck with Kenny Loggins. I guess it went well enough (they play
Heart to Heart down a whole step, so it took me a few minutes to get accustomed to that), and they also asked me to play on the end of
Danger Zone.
We played our set. My microphone receiver got messed up because I used the same setup with Kenny Loggins at soundcheck, so I spent half a song under my keyboards sorting that out.
Aaaaaand then on to the next thing.
And he even remembered my name! The band and their management was very happy, so I think it's safe to say that I successfully pulled it off.
The Yacht Rock guys all left for the airport in New York, but I stayed around to played Danger Zone, so I traveled in a separate black car/limo kind of thing about an hour and a half behind them. The young guy who drove me was a little nuts. At 12:30 AM, a half hour from my hotel, I asked if he could stop somewhere so that I could use the bathroom, and he offered to just pull off on the shoulder ("because we're dudes and we can just do it"), and I said that I could wait until we found a gas station or something, which he didn't think we'd see, so at the next available exit, he said, "How about here?" and we peeled off into a neighbohood, where he pulled over next to a house. I was not so sure, but sensing that this was going to be my only option, I hopped out on the sidewalk and peed into the hedge of someone's side yard, hoping that I could finish and get back in the car before the floodlights turned on. I jumped back in the car, we went around the block, and popped back on the interstate.
Thirty minutes later, we were stuck in a traffic jam, and the guy behind was laying on his horn because we'd dared to merge in front of him. My driver rolled down his window and gestured with one hand, but the honking continued, so then he tried both hands. We then drove through the construction, with my driver hitting the brakes every twenty seconds to harass the guy behind us. Once we'd cleared the traffic, we took off at ninety miles and hour, and the guy behind came around us faster than that, so now we're drag racing on the interstate at 1 in the morning, and the other guy keeps trying to swerve in front of us and we're moving to avoid him, and then fortunately we're at my exit, so...I didn't die in a car crash on the same night I played an arena show with Kenny Loggins.
We spent the night at a hotel next to JFK in Queens, NY, and at 6 AM, we were piling into Lyfts to make the quick trip to the airport for a looooooong flight.
September 15, 2023: San Diego, CA. Ugh. We flew from JFK to San Diego. Needless to say, I slept almost the entire flight. The timing worked out that we could check into our hotel and go get lunch before it was time to load into our gig at Humphreys, so Zach, Bencuya, and James (our lighting guy) walked a couple of blocks over to Little Italy for lunch.
I had a salad and a pizza.
Bencuya probably had a salad or something. He's on a low carb diet, so maybe this wasn't the best spot for him.
Humphreys Concerts by the Bay. Is there a better place for a Yacht Rock gig?
We had a good time! I was surprisingly not that worn out.
September 16, 2023: San Diego, CA. I slept as late as I could, went for a run, and had lunch.
Night two at Humphreys was also good, maybe better after a full night of sleep.
September 17, 2023: Phoenix, AZ. We got up pretty early and began the long trek to Arizona.
It's still very hot here, even in mid-September.
Our spot in Phoenix is the Van Buren, an excellent venue (though it was very cold with the air conditioning on full blast). Not a bad night!
The hotel had our keys ready when we arrived, but we soon found out that none of the keys worked, so then we stood around for fifteen minutes while they redid everything. Then it was off to bed for a few hours before we hit the airport and flew home for thirty-six hours!
September 20, 2023: Sacramento, CA. Another night flight, flying west the day before the gig. I had a burrito for dinner, and the fresh jalapeños were too much! I almost died somewhere over Mississippi from it. Next time, pickled jalapeños, got it?
At the hotel, I got the set lists printed out in the business center.
September 21, 2023: Sacramento, CA. Slept a lot, went for a run, found some Indian food, and then it was time to go to the gig!
The Ace of Spades in Sacramento. Hmm. The last time we were here was 2019.
Some shows, I enjoy the warming up part more than the gig itself. This was one of those.
September 22, 2023: Saratoga, CA. Mountain Winery.
This is a pretty epic venue, though the bugs almost carried us away at soundcheck.
This one got a little chilly! A couple of my fingertips went numb while I was warming up on the loading dock. Thankfully, they returned to nornal before the show began, and then an intermission kept them from getting too cold.
After show pizza. I ate Bencuya's pieces.
We spent the night by the San Fransisco airport, and it looks like the housekeeper must have worked on a cruise ship at some point.
September 23, 2023: Denver, CO. The next morning we flew to Denver for a corporate gig. It was pretty brutal. We were all exhausted.
We got to the ballroom where we were to perform. None of the gear had been set up because the backline guy was working alone, so the band jumped in and began building the rented equipment. After setting things up and eating lunch, we had a hasty soundcheck before checking into our rooms for a break.
The vegetarian dinner was good, and I ordered a second one, only to find out after the fact that they'd only made two plates of it (and the server was unwilling/unable to find more), so it turns out that I'd eaten Pete's dinner. Kind of the way this whole day went.
Ugh. This gig was tough. One of those lukewarm corporate gigs that lasted twice as long as it should have, and frustrated all of us as it dragged on and the crowd dwindled. By the end, I was so mad at everything and everybody and everywhere! Agggghhh!
Then we got up at 5:30 AM and headed to the airport to fly home. Denver's airport was already in chaos.
September 30, 2023: Jefferson, GA. No gig tonight, but Zach got married! Band meeting!
