David Freeman Music

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 d...

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 setli...

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?)?...

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: ...