Pizza Tour

Yacht Rock returned from a run up the northeast last weekend.  The drives were long, the sleep was limited, the food was mediocre at best, and our collective smell was...strong.

Wednesday:  travel day.  We left around 2 PM and drove to Virginia to spend the night, en route to our first gig outside Philadelphia.  Somewhere in North Carolina we ate ok Mexican food.

Thursday:  more driving on the way to Ardmore (outside Philadelphia), with a pit stop in Chevy Chase, MD to pick up Nick and eat lunch at Manoli Canoli.  I ate an entire pizza.

Ardmore was cold and rainy when we arrived.  Pretty easy load in through the back right to the stage.

The stage was on the small side, but not terribly so.  It was also very dead, with heavy curtains hanging around the back and side.  Behind me was the bar.

This was our first chance to publicly try a couple of tunes:  Arthur's Theme (The Best that You Can Do) and Who Loves You.

A crowd of right around a hundred people show up.  Not too bad for a suburban out of town club gig on a Thursday night.

The weirdest thing about this gig--the house sound guy informed our sound man Kip that the club was transitioning to new management, and the entire staff had been fired, but had to work their last three weeks before new people took over.  I'm not sure that's the best way to do that...

Friday:  our travel for the day only involved a trip from Philly to New York City, so Mark Dannells and I used the morning to practice our flute/guitar duo stuff for the wedding ceremony we were playing Saturday afternoon.

Speaking of wedding ceremony stuff--Nick forgot non-polyester clothing to wear for his part in the ceremony, so we stopped at a mall for food and clothing.  I'm not sure if food court Chinese food is a sensible choice, but that's what we did.

Greg, Pete, and I had a discussion about which A Team members we'd be.  My votes:

Monkeyboy:  Murdoch
Greg:  BA
Pete:  Face
Nick:  Hannibal

whatever.

New York City!

There was about an hour to kill before load in, so we went for a walk.

Our show was at Irving Plaza.  Any place that has a crew to help load you in is a pretty nice place.

We soundchecked--nice sounding stage!  Robbie Dupree came to soundcheck and we went over a couple more of his songs.

In between that and the gig, more pizza.  For whatever reason, I ordered two slices, but could only eat one.

Great gig!  New York is always a fantastic show, but this crowd was particularly good.  Approximately 600 in attendance.

Robbie Dupree came out.  We did Hot Rod Hearts, Steal Away, and Dance with Me.

photo cred Kip Conner

One of our Atlanta buddies, Kerry Glennon, was in New Jersey visiting her parents, so she came out. Super cool to see her when she wasn't busy working.

Post gig, the "fun" began.  We loaded out and drove to New Jersey to spend the night.  I went to bed at 3:30 AM.  Lobby call was 6 AM.

Saturday:  6 AM.  Today's event was a wedding in Virginia Beach.   I ate my other piece of pizza, and we pointed the van south.

Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.  23 miles of this, plus a couple of tunnels in the middle of the bay.  Cool/weird.  I'm betting it was sleep deprivation and the accompanying headache that made me want to jump out of my skin at the entrance to both tunnels.

We had to get to the gig early because everything for the reception had to be set before guests showed up.  Mark Dannells and I (and Nick on one song) played the ceremony--flute and guitar duo.

Perfect weather.

After the ceremony, we had a couple of hours and some really crappy sandwiches to kill.  Post sandwich, I think we all passed out on the floor.

There was a gift on my nord.

Sunday:  Keep going!  We got up and drove to Charlotte for our final gig of the run at the Charlotte Fillmore.

We stopped in Durham for lunch at Mellow Mushroom (and some football).  I ate another pizza.

The Fillmore is niiiiiiiiice.  It's located on the back side of the NC Music Factory (a loading dock looking outdoor venue where we've played a couple of shows).  This is a cool room with a nice sized stage.

Once again, a crew helped load in our gear.

A better than expected gig!  The long drives and little sleep  (and overall pretty shitty food) made us all really fried.  There was some concern that we would have fewer than fifty people show up for this show, but the attendance for the evening was right at 300.  Cool!

For whatever reason, there wasn't enough time for us to eat between soundcheck and the gig, so we planned it eat afterwards.  Our first plan was to hit the diner across the street from the Fillmore, but it was closed by the time we had loaded out.  The backup plan was to hit the Waffle House next door to our hotel.  After twenty minutes of waiting without so much as an opportunity for a drink order from the waitress, we got up and left.  The backup to the backup was Taco Bell.  I abstained.

Monday:  Back to Atlanta.  Peace.

Foxy Wedding

Yacht Rock played a wedding at the Egyptian Ballroom Saturday night.  I got the feeling they were pretty big fans by the number of specific song requests from our list--probably almost half!  We also learned a shag song (yuck) and Who Loves You by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.  I like this tune a lot, and I think it's a good add.  Hopefully it'll be a keeper.  If nothing else, it's an effort towards changing things up and keeping the set list from going stale.  Same old songs on every gig=bored band.

What a video, too.  Funny to think that hairy, middle aged men could be pop stars.



The big problem on this gig was the catering, who delivered plates of once hot food to our green room.  Do I really want to try and eat a plate of cold beef, cold fish, cold shrimp, and cold fries?  Got any fruits or vegetables?  This was totally inedible, so I went out to my truck and got a granola bar to carry me through the gig.  Not cool.  I realize we're not their primary responsibility, but that "meal" was pathetic.  After we complained, they brought some grapes and bread and maybe a scoop of hummus, and another plate of shrimp.  I don't know.  I'd already given up at that point.

We watched Footloose until it was time to play.

Other than that, it was a pretty decent gig.  Zach ran sound (Kip was out with Shawn Mullins).  The crowd was into it pretty quickly, which made for a pretty entertaining gig.  Cobb showed up a with a set of Steve Jordan sized cymbals (18" high hats made of two crashes), and then played most of the night sounding kind of like Steve Jordan.

I wish I'd kept count of some of these rooms in which I've played multiple gigs.  I bet I've played the Egyptian Ballroom close to fifty times by now.

Load out was actually not too bad.  The aforementioned catering people split seconds after the end of the reception.

In other news, I had my second week of two (back to back) church gigs.  I still haven't nailed down everything in the first one.  So close, and yet so far.  I'd love to get in there more often and actually be comfortable with what we were doing.  My flute face took forever to settle in, too.  I couldn't find my tuning, and I kept doing weird stuff with my embouchure as I tried to get there.  Finally, I put my head joint back to the spot where I almost always have it and everything was cool with the pitch and my sound.  Stoooopid Dave.

The second mass was nothing worth mentioning.  Flute was good, but my pitch on soprano felt all over the place.  I gave in and opened the tuner app on my phone--I was in tune.  Confidence!  I feel tone deaf tonight.

Yacht Rock is on the road this week!  Stops in Ardmore/Philly (Thursday), NYC (Friday), a wedding in Virginia Beach (Saturday), and then Charlotte (Sunday).