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Another trip to the midwest.  No Pete on these gigs due to the impending birth of his son.

Friday:  Indianapolis.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway

We flew into Indy pretty early, giving us ample time to go find lunch.  Kip never seems to want to eat what the majority is eating, so the rest of us went to some place called Bakersfield and had really good Mexican food and left him at the pizza place.  We later regrouped at the van, where we found him trying out his new chair.

We still had time before load in, so the van made its way to Broad Ripple and we dispersed again, mostly to the record store.  Nice to see one of my college heroes, Rob Dixon, still making music in Indy.

The rain moved in while we were setting up, flooding the parking lot.

A sold out show.  Nice!

Saturday:  Chicago.

Indianapolis and Chicago are not very far apart, so we killed time with a band field trip to see Jason Bourne.  I hadn't been to the movies since the latest Stars Wars came out last winter.  This theatre served food, which was pretty cool--I've never been to one like this before.

I sat next to Monkeyboy.

On to Chicago.  I will spare you any pictures of the beloved wind farm...because I was asleep and missed all that.  Instead, here's a shot from our gas stop somewhere in the middle of nowhere in northern Indiana.

The high in Chicago was 75.

Our show at Joe's on Weed Street was pretty good--around 500 people in attendance, but their energy was at least as good as the 1,000 people from the night before.  The on stage sound was also twice as good as the night before.

Both this show and the previous evening in Indy had horns added on (same guys for both shows).  I'm not sure exactly why, but when we play with horns, I feel almost no connection to the other Yacht Rock guys, and also almost no connection to the gig that we're doing.  I guess I don't really feel much of a connection to the horn section either.  All we're doing is going over my arranging homework.

Sunday:  Fly home.  I thought for sure that I'd sleep on the plane, but instead watched most of Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot, which was ok--pretty predictable.  I didn't make it all the way to the end, but it doesn't matter.

We landed around lunch time.  I had enough time to head home, eat, warm up, and head back south of Atlanta for my first night subbing in the pit for Miss Saigon, playing piccolo, flute, clarinet, and alto saxophone (it's a hybrid of the reed books 1 and 3).  For this performance, the pit is inside a massive steel shipping container.  Let's hope the power doesn't go out this time (you can read about my previous adventure at this playhouse here), though that made for an excellent story.

I've done quite a bit of practicing getting ready for this show, but it doesn't seem like it can ever be enough, mostly because after learning all the notes and rhythms, I still have to get in sync with the conductor and rest of the ensemble, which may be the hardest part (and there's some really difficult shit to play in a few of these songs).  In addition to this night's show, I also have Wednesday through Saturday, so maybe Friday and Saturday, I'll have the flow of it?

I think I did pretty well for the first time--there were even a few moments where I actually thought I was doing a good job, but by the end of the show, my face (and my brain) were exhausted, and I had one big exposed flute part that was rough--I could feel everybody in the box cringe as I tried to hold it together.  If I'd had twenty seconds of rest right before the part, it would have made all the difference in the world.  I might have to do a little editing during the big ensemble part immediately proceeding it.

The pit thing is weird--nobody talks to each other after the show ends.  Everybody packs up really quickly and walks out, and on this night it reinforced my feeling that I'd blown it because of rough eight measure flute solo on the ninety-fourth page of the book.  By the time I'd cleaned out all my horns and put everything away, I was the only one left.  I enjoyed the challenge of trying to play all of this stuff, but the total absence of any camaraderie leaves me once again feeling alone on the gig.

One more thing:  they theatre company hired a real Huey helicopter to fly in and touch down for a minute during the fall of Saigon.  Not only do I not get to see it (because I'm in a giant steel box and I'm glued to the music), but I'm not even sure that I hear it.  Major bummer--I love helicopters.  More unfulfillment!

Oh Atlanta!

Yacht Rock was back in Atlanta for a weekend of gigs.  In between gigs, Pete joked about trying to check in on the Delta app.  It's only half funny--looking at my Delta app as I write this, there are eleven more trips this year.  Damn.  Anyway...Atlanta!

Friday:  Due to all of our crazy calendar this year, this was our first available date to play the Park Tavern (in previous years we've averaged about once a month all summer long).  Pretty good crowd, around 800.

To change things up, we added a horn section for this show (Rob Opitz, trumpet and Sir Richard Serrington, trombone) with pretty good results.  My horn charts for Yacht Rock have only been used a couple of times in the entire existence of the band, so they still have a few wrinkles that need to be ironed out.  Regardless of that, though, it was nice to hang with some other horn players for a change.  I feel out of touch.

It was also nice to check in with Ganesh Giri Jaya, filling in for the vacationing Mark Cobb.  As usual, he did an excellent job, and hipped me to some cool new music by Mark Guiliana.  Check it out!





Saturday:  Venkman's.  Hooray for air conditioning.

No horns on this one (so I was more confident in what I was doing), and Daniel Morrison of the Yacht Rock Schooner played drums with us.  Solid gig.  I didn't screw up as much as the previous night.

Testing

We were tested with these gigs!  A local Atlanta gig, then a cross country flight with a late night gig, a flight back across the country, and then a gig with a bunch of music that we don't see very often.  It hurts my brain.

Wednesday:  Corporate event at The Tabernacle in Atlanta.

Hat of The Great Bencuya

The Tabernacle is a really amazing place to perform, and I must say that I like everything about it, from the loaders who dragged our gear in to the size of the stage to the sound of the room to the backstage accommodations.  The audience was pretty fired up for a Wednesday night, which was super cool, and my in ear mix sounded like the frickin' radio (I mean that in a good way)--very clear, and everything was perfectly balanced.  Plus, I was on a riser, so I didn't feel like I was hiding behind the guitar amp.  We finished early, and I was home by maybe 10:30.  Everything about this gig was fantastic, including side-boob girl, who danced in front of Pete and Monkey for most of the second set.  Hats off to you.

Friday:  Corporate event in Tucson, Arizona.

Fly dates are not my favorite, by virtue of the fact that I have a ton of gear to carry.  Even after checking a bag and a Pelican box of gear, I still am loaded down like a paratrooper at the gate--two saxophones in gig bags plus a backpack.  Every trip stressful until I can get my horns and bag stowed.

We flew a few hours, arriving in the desert around lunch time.  The resort where we stayed had a nice restaurant, so we ate there and then caught a quick nap before set up/soundcheck time.

So...Mardi Gras themed party in Arizona with a late 70s/early 80s band out of Atlanta?  OK!

This gig was not as great as the Tabernacle gig, but it wasn't anything too difficult.  I was given a Nord Stage for my bottom keyboard, and I always enjoy trying to figure out how to make it do what I want.  Too bad they're so damn expensive--I'd love to have one!  Because it's a weighted action keyboard, playing piano and rhodes is really much more comfortable than the springy action of a Nord Electro.  Then again, somebody else had to carry this monster in and out of here (Electro=18 lbs;  Stage=36 lbs)!

The only thing that was really tough (to me) about this gig was the hours.  Due to the time zone, we played from midnight to 3 AM east coast time.  Ouch.  Around 2:15 AM, I really started dragging.

The desert and the resort were beautiful.  Too bad it was 107 degrees that afternoon!  I would have liked to have gone for a walk, but the heat and my fatigue from traveling were too much.  If we'd only had one more day to acclimate to the time change, I would've made an attempt to get out and see more.

The hill right outside my room.

You can make a plastic cup out of corn.  I dig that.

Friday:  Travel day.

My breakfast of champions:  medium coffee and three bananas.

We took an early afternoon flight out, so following lunch at the airport, it was off to Huntsville, AL via Atlanta.

The skies were clear, which made for some pretty great pictures.

We landed in Atlanta in the early evening.

Live saxophone in the Atlanta airport!  I didn't recognize this guy, playing some smooth jazz over tracks.

The flight from Atlanta to Huntsville was humorously short.  Lots of jokes--will they even both pulling up the landing gear?  I think take off to touch down was thirty minutes.

Saturday:  80s Concert in Huntsville, Alabama.

We played at the space center last year (you can read about it here).  They wanted to kick it up a notch, so we brought the big dudes.

A passing thunderstorm looked pretty mean, so we tarped our gear.  It didn't amount to much.  I'm sure that if I hadn't brought a tarp, we would have washed away.  Hiding from the rain ate up a chunk of time, so I guess it was a good thing that only Jeff Carlisi and Bill Champlin came to soundcheck (in all fairness, we've played enough shows with Robbie that there was no need to check his stuff).

This is how Zach tunes a guitar.

One more special guest not on the show poster:  Larry B Scott, who was in the movie Space Camp (filmed right here in Huntsville!), but who is probably more famous for his role as Lamar from Revenge of the Nerds.  It sounds like he does the rap from Revenge of the Nerds every time he's on a stage with a microphone, so we quickly worked up the music that accompanies him.  I was given Poindexter's violin part.

Unfortunately, Larry didn't seem to care that we'd figured it all out, and he launched into the rap without heeding our arrangement.  We played the parts, but some of it ran over his lyrics.  It's unfortunate--capturing it on film would have been a social media bonanza.

Here's the spot from the movie:



Anyway...

I don't have anything to do on two of Jeff Carlisi's .38 Special songs, so I took some pictures.

With the exception of Robbie, we don't play with any of these guests regularly, so learning and remembering all of their stuff felt like a near endless progression of first dances--I know how this one goes, but I am by no means comfortable.  Add to it a handful of charts that I was reading, and trying to remember when (and how much) to transpose my keyboards, and I was a little fried by the time we finished.  The whole night felt a bit sloppy and tentative for me.

My only really epic failure came at the beginning of the second set.  I'd preset my stuff for Danger Zone, but we did the Revenge of the Nerds rap right before it.  I'm always very paranoid about missing the beginning of PYT, and as Larry finished up his spot on stage, I suddenly overlooked Danger Zone and frantically reset all my stuff for PYT.  Then realizing that I'd skipped a song, I had to frantically set all my stuff back to Danger Zone.  Got it?  I was stupid.  I missed some of the beginning and then butchered some of the middle, and then I had to stop playing altogether (which I'm not supposed to do) because I forgot to pick up my horn for the sax solo at the end.  Not my best moment.

For what it's worth, I was solid on PYT.

The shows this weekend are in Atlanta--Friday at Park Tavern and Saturday at Venkman's.  Both are Yacht Rock.  Neither involve a trip to the airport.