There's a lot going on this week/weekend, and I'm right in the middle of it.
Wednesday night, we played Please Pleaserock Me, which if you don't know is the Yacht Rock guys (plus Jason Pellett on trumpet) playing Beatles stuff and songs from their solo records. It's pretty fun. The gig is really easy for me...basically, I have horn section charts and we just read 'em down. For some reason, I couldn't really get me head into what we were doing. It wasn't disinterest so much as the blahs. The gig went fairly well, and we had a decent crowd.
Thursday night was the Yacht Rock Revue at the 10 High--our usual Thursday nighter. The place was packed, which is always nice!
I still had the blahs heading into this one. The first few songs were a little "are we really playing?" Mentally, I had not yet arrived. Thus, I missed the return to the intro on Grease. Nice. It took about half a set to find a groove.
Ganesh Giri Jaya played drums (and Dereck Murphy sat in a couple). I couldn't really get into what either was playing. Everything was too laid back--not enough kicking ass!
Mark Bencuya played a really terrific synth solo on Hey 19, reminiscent of his solo on I Wanna Be Your Lover from the Reagan Rock prom. Other than that, it was business as usual.
After the gig (at 2 AM!), I met up with a guy over by the Dekalb County Jail and purchased his Roland Fantom X6. I am one step closer to being like Bencuya!
Speaking of which, Bencuya paid me the compliment of the year in telling me how much I have improved as a keyboardist. Brandon Still left us last July to join Blackberry Smoke, and Bencuya says that in listening to the recordings from last fall and then listening to the latest stuff he can hear a huge difference in my ability. Great news! I'm glad it's making a difference.
Friday night, the Yacht Rock Revue played at the Park Tavern as part of the Summer Concert Series. This is our favorite place to play right now--the stage is a good size, the sound is impeccable, and the crowds are always enthusiastic. We did our thing last night and they loved it.
A few personal highlights: I played piano on You're So Vain, and it was the best I'd ever played it. I was rockin'! It was awesome. I had a great time playing the clav part on Peg behind Mark Dannells' solo--while I was playing, I imagined Bencuya listening to it 6 weeks from now and wondering what in the hell I was doing! I played organ on Footloose and fell in love with the overdrive knob on the keyboard. I was extremely audible, let's just say.
Mark Cobb was back, and he was on fire. I LOVE playing with Cobb. He was killin' it. He made the entire band better.
We're singing the national anthem Sunday evening at the Braves game, so we tried it tonight. It went pretty well. I got a little off. We practiced it in the dressing room and it was solid, but I wandered around in the middle. Gotta fix that before we step on the field!
I am with the Yacht Rock Schooner tonight. Debuting Arthur's Theme (Best that You Can Do). Oh yeah!
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