David Freeman Music

We got home Monday afternoon, and Thursday, January 20 , we were back in the van, this time headed to Columbia, South Carolina. Remember the gig we played here a month ago? ( it's in here ) This is the followup to that gig. Here's the show poster. This place we played didn't seem like much from the outside, and it held the generic name of "township auditorium," but wow! What a room! Our gear was still making its way home from the Pacific Northwest, so we used backline (rented) gear for this one (and I brought my spare saxophones, flutes, etc).  When I first tried to install my settings on the Fantom (top keyboard), the drive didn't work, so I tried to do it using a USB cable from my laptop. Still no luck, and then it looked like ALL the sounds on the keyboard were gone. HOLY SHIT! MASSIVE PANIC! I was freaking out. The backline guy was like, "I can make it happen!"...whatever. I tried the USB cable upload one more time, and the keyboard burped and ca...

January 7, 2022: And we're off! Yacht Rock met up at the airport for a morning flight to Boston, only to have the flight cancel within thirty minutes of taking off due to bad weather in the northeast. We were rescheduled on early afternoon flights, so...four hours of hanging around the airport started with lunch at TGI Fridays. Our plane from Atlanta was further delayed--we sat on the runway for a half hour before taking off (which was fine, because I was already asleep), and then we had to do a few loops off the Massachusetts coast before the runway opened for us to land.   It looks there were no sharks close to Boston (in case we had to ditch and swim to shore). Three great whites and one mako. We finally got in around 5 PM, collected most of our luggage (neither Mark Cobb's nor my suitcase made it!), and made our way to the Boston House of Blues for a very quick set up and soundcheck before they opened the doors. The gig was kind of a blur. We were tired and stressed out ab...

A New Year's Eve gig never materialized for the Yacht Rock Revue, but I ended up working anyway, subbing for my friend Bryan Lopes in the Rupert's Orchestra. They had a NYE wedding in Alabama that night, and Lopes tested positive for COVID earlier in the week and had to sit it out. The horns and rhythm section in the band have been the same for the last twenty-five years, so this was also a great opportunity to catch up with several colleagues with whom I hadn't played in five or six years. Look at this feast! Obviously their rider is not on the same level as the YRR demands. I peeled the turkey off a few of those sandwiches and ate lettuce, bread, and tomato. I also had a bag of cheetos and two cookies. And a water. It was sad. Kevin kept an eye the Georgia game from behind the stage on songs with no horns.  I've subbed in Rupert's since the mid-ninties, and at this point, I think I've seen every chart they play with any frequency. This Dancing Queen  chart, I...

Whoops! All of the sudden, a month's worth of gigs have gone by without a blog. Here's what you might have missed...and what I remember. November 12: Huntington, New York.  Back on Long Island at The Paramount, one of the nicest places we play. Our flight was pretty early in the day, so we parked at the venue and then dispersed for lunch. Indian food right around the corner! I had lentil soup and vegetable biryani at House of India. Very good. This place is great, and the crew was mercifully less "New York Bro" than usual. We've come a long way here (the first time we played, they wouldn't even put our name on the marquee--they just wrote "70s Cover Band"--so people would know what to expect). Tonight was a sellout!  I had a good warmup before this one and played some really good stuff down at the loading dock, but I honestly remember nothing about playing this gig. Let's assume it was great. I'm sure it was fine. When you sell out The Param...