Weirdest Gig of the Year

Yacht Rock played a very strange gig Friday at the Chamber of Commerce in Atlanta.  Following on the heels of our sold out show last Saturday at the Variety Playhouse (and more or less selling out the Georgia Theatre in Athens the night before that), we played for around forty people, the vast majority of whom ignored us until the last THIRTEEN minutes of the gig, when two people finally set foot on the dance floor.  We played almost two full sets without anyone coming near us.  Maybe they were enjoying the music while hanging out (possibly networking?)?  I'm not sure.  Very strange.

Also weird was that fifteen minutes after we finished, a group of people who threw the party came into the dressing room to thank us for being there.  That's not weird (it's nice of them to do so), but we were almost all half undressed at that point (I was wearing underwear and socks when they came in), and they hung out talking/thanking for a couple of minutes.  Should I continue progressing towards street clothes, or put my polyester back on?  It was cool of them to thank us personally, but hey...I'm standing here in my boxers.

Weirder still...the same group returned a few minutes later to ask for a group photo (when they'd just seen us changing out of our stage clothes, so we had to put our clothes back on (we agreed on top half only, so Monkeyboy didn't wear pants for this), step out into the hall, and take a few pictures.  Again, it's cool that they liked us, but...we were available for all this in between the two sets when we played for no one.  How about then?

One other observation:  the "chamber" in the Chamber has a bidet/heated toilet seat...the works.  Is this for employees or foreign guests?  I wanted to take it for a ride, but I only had to pee during my visit.

Sunday Trio

After slugging through the Yacht Rock Variety Playhouse gig, I went home, climbed into bed, and slept for 10-12 hours.  Sleep was the best preparation for Sunday's gig, a jazz trio (with David Ellington, piano, and Kevin Smith, bass) for some sort of corporate reception/feeding.

Most of these corporate things are really uptight, but this client was super cool.  She came in and hung out for a second;  she even had Ellington take a picture of us while I was playing his new keyboard (a modern rhodes piano made by Vintage Vibe).

So...the gig was pretty great.  We all played well, the people were really cool to us, and it ended on time.  Check out the tunes (no repeats from Wednesday's trio):



I feel less bummed about my life.


In other news...

Fantastic pictures from the Thriller show by Emily Butler Photography.  Here are a few of me.

Thrilled

Saturday began early for me (after a very late night coming home from Athens) with a wedding ceremony in Smyrna.  I picked this one up after one of my Sunday church gigs--my friend Graham played piano and sang, and I filled in the spaces around him.  It was fun!  Always a good hang with Graham.

From there, I had just barely enough time to run home, change clothes, eat lunch and head to the Variety Playhouse for Yacht Rock's annual Thriller show.  This was also the day of the Little 5 Points Halloween Parade, so everybody came screaming in right before the road was closed.

This turned out to be a very difficult gig.  For one thing, I'd definitely crammed too much stuff in a week (I ended up with 10 gigs in 9 days, plus 2 rehearsals).  There was pressure because it sold out.  Also, the Thriller show has never settled--every year we change some things (adding solos, etc) and shift harmony vocals.  Whereas the Purple Rain show feels consistent from year to year, this one always feels like we're doing it for the first time.  The cumulative effect is focused apprehension in front of a giant audience.

Also, we had a camera crew filming, and a pro photographer planted in front of Pete.  The camera shooting from behind me was a reminder of the post-gig scrutiny that would be happening.  The photographer in front made me extremely self-conscious of everything I did.

I think the crowd really enjoyed it, but if you asked anybody in the band (particularly in between sets), you'd have gotten a different story.  It was not fun experience.  I, for one, had pretty much given up on my career in music by the end;  mentally, I had finished drafting my resignation to the band.

Looking over the first set now, I'm not sure why I felt like that.  The only song that got the best of me was The Girl is Mine, and that was only because I totally blew my background vocal parts.  Playing-wise, it was fine.  There was definitely a heavy vibe between all of us, though.  We didn't enjoy any of the music.

photo cred:  Emily Butler Photography

The second set was a good bit more relaxed;  we all laughed a little bit more and played a little more.  The only song that bit me in the ass was Take On Me;  it's always the same chords, but a different order depending on where we are in the song.  It a Russian Roulette of A, C#minor, D, and F# minor.  I also played a great big wrong chord in Maniac, come to think of it.  I can live with all of that, though, because we had more fun.  First set, not so much.  By the time we'd finished the encore, I was more than ready to go home.

Georgia Theatre

It's been several months since Yacht Rock made the trip to Athens to play the Georgia Theatre.  It's good to be back!  What was already a good sounding room has improved for us over the years with the addition of our own sound crew (yay Kip and Zach) and in ear monitors.

It's homecoming weekend in Athens, and we just barely beat the street closure and the UGA marching band.  It would've been a long uphill push of the gear if we'd missed it.

This was a pretty decent gig.  Nick tried to shake up the set list a little bit, so there were a few second set tunes in the first set, which felt kind of weird.   The set list also had a few previews of songs for Saturday night's Thriller show at the Variety Playhouse.

Joining us for the evening were two background singers, Keisha Jackson and Slick Barnes.  We met them earlier in the year on a big corporate gig in Las Vegas, and then they sang on our Purple Rain show.  Since they'll also be on the Variety Playhouse gig, we brought them along.

No clunkers on this gig.  With the exception of Arthur's Theme, I think I got everything right.  Monkey was screwing that one up, and I'm still not sure whether I was also making mistakes (independent of his mistakes), hearing his mistakes and thinking they were mine, or making mistakes because of his mistakes.  Any way you hear it, there was some bad shit in there.

Great crowd at the Georgia Theatre (50 people short of a sellout)--probably the best, least douchiest we've had, with the exception of the two people directly in front of me at the corner of the stage who were on their phones the entire time.  I wanted to kick them in the faces.  I actually spent a few songs in the second set mentally kicking them in the faces.  It was fun.  I hope their hangovers require hospitalization, and I hope they get charged for data roaming for the entire night.

Thursday

Yacht Rock played our first gig at Nick and Pete's new room, Venkman's.  Pretty easy show, though it almost felt like we played twice because we loaded in at noon, sound checked, and didn't perform until after 9:30 PM.  

The show was pretty middle of the road for us--nothing unusual on the set list, except for maybe Everything She Wants.  I had a few better than average sax solos, which was nice.  Things got slightly 10 High-ish during our set, a nod to our old Thursday steady years back.  

We played one set, so it was over before I got bored.

Trio

The gigs roll on...Wednesday night was a trio in the World Congress Center, in one of their giant exhibit halls.  We were way off in a corner, supplying the tunes for tractor distributors who wanted a little jazz with their buffet dinners.  Twas a strange setting for sure.

Here are the tunes.  Kevin's bass pick up died at the Kind of Blue gig, so he used a mic on a stand, and after about five tunes he got off the mic and is thus difficult to hear.  It's his fault, not mine.

Cheddar, Beef, Etc.

Yacht Rock played a private party Tuesday night at, of all places, Park Tavern.  Pretty regular corporate gig.  No fruit in the green room.  Boo.

In between sets, several people asked to have their pictures taken with us.

Then a dude with a pink phone totally moved in on my shot, oblivious to my existence.

More people.

Starting to get a little weird.

Is that a Blackberry?

Here's one of a bunch of frickin' dudes.  One of these fuckers kept yelling for Freebird all night like 1.  We've never heard that joke before;  2.  We might seriously play Freebird.  

Back to the action.  We have the meats.  Not much of a gig, though they danced enough to get us through the night, but just barely.  Definitely not one for the books.

The good gigs are coming up next.  Stay tuned.