Yacht Rock had our first ever fly gig this weekend--we traveled to White Plains, NY to play a 40th birthday party. Except for the lack of sleep, it turned out to be a really fun weekend.
Our flight up was scheduled for 8:30 AM, and I'd bet nobody in the band got more than five hours of sleep before it (I would know because we were all emailing back and forth right around midnight). I fell asleep before the plane had even left the ground, and finally woke up right before we landed.
Nick and Pete rented a van and drove all the equipment up, and we met up with them at the house where we were playing. The set up was in a tent on their back porch. After setting up and checking, we went back to the hotel and crashed for a few hours. Then, back to the gig.
The gig itself was pretty good. Nobody got too silly or sloppy. We made a bunch of new friends and got lots of verbal offers to play in the area.
I went back to the hotel and slept HARD until 9 AM this morning. We got up, went back to the airport, and flew home. It was pretty uneventful.
My tenor rode in the van, and I carried my alto and EWI in a gig bag. I lucked into some key clamps via eBay, and so I tried them on my alto. They're not something I'd use day to day, but I figured on a trip like that where I had my horn in a bag and it could get jostled around a little more, it might be worth it. I like the idea. I don't know if they really do more harm than good, but there's definitely some peace of mind in it. We've got some more traveling coming up in early January, so I'm going to go ahead and order a set of clamps for my tenor, too.
