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| hey Grand Forks! Wednesday: Yacht Rock flew to Seattle for a gig for Brooks Running Company. What a cool opportunity! I'd never been that far west before. |
We arrived early in the afternoon, checked into our hotel (the W downtown),
and headed out to the Pike Place Market in search of food.
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| the place where they throw fish |
Eventually, we landed at Steelhead Diner. It was really good! I'm not really a fish eater, so I was worried that I might end up with a meal of french fries and water. The menu had a variety of things; I ended up with some kind of pork sandwich.
We went back to our rooms after that. I went and worked out, and then decided to wait in my room for the half hour until we were going to go out.
Thursday: I woke up in my clothes with the lights and the TV on at 5:45 AM local time--I'd fallen asleep and missed going out. Since I was pretty well rested, I went downstairs and got coffee, and then poked around on the internet while watching the sunrise.
When Seattle finally woke up, I made my way over to the Space Needle. Pretty cool. I went up in the first elevator of the day--me and some weird British indie band.
Next, I explored the Experience Music Project museum. Lots of cool stuff about Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana. Mostly a collection of broken guitars! It was neat, though Nirvana never had much of an effect on me--for almost all of the nineties, I was on a pretty exclusive diet of John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins.
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| MJ glove |
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| strat from Woodstock |
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| a perfectly good Rhodes stuck on there! |
Seattle's really hip. I walked down along the waterfront on the way back to the hotel, and I couldn't help but notice how hip the architecture was and how well all the buildings fit together--nothing stuck out, and but none of the buildings was simply a nondescript box. The people were quiet and polite--I didn't notice any obnoxious cell phone conversations on the street. People waited patiently on street corners for the crosswalk signs to change, and when they stepped into traffic, the cars all waited. I liked it--everybody followed the rules and it worked. The entire city felt really well laid out.
I worked out again, showered, warmed up, and met up with everybody in the lobby for the gig.
The event was held at the Fremont Studios--kind of a big soundstage. When we walked in, all of our rented gear was set up and in place--some minor adjustments and we were ready to go! Usually when we do fly dates, we have to wait while everything gets set up (and we end up doing half the work ourselves). Very nice to have it all there.
For food, we had a pork chop, a hunk of salmon, and some weird sort of slaw-like thing. I was so hungry, I even ate the fish.
The gig was pretty good. The crowd was decent, though they ended up so far away from us that it was tough to get any energy from them. We played well, though. Towards the end (around 10:30 PM) I started to get really tired since I'd been up and active all day. That last half hour, I was watching the clock.
We got back to the hotel around midnight. Our lobby call was 4 AM. Ouch.
Friday: from the Atlanta airport, we drove straight to the Strand Theatre in Marietta for the first of a two night stand there. Our equipment arrived around the same time we did.
This one was pretty smooth. The place was packed (530 people-over sold out!), and they were really into it right from the start. We did our usual stuff, and they loved it.
I like playing the Strand a lot, and not just because it's ten minutes from my house. It's a cool little venue and the size of the stage feels right. They don't really have enough of a PA for our show, but we made do. We had good energy from the crowd, and I think everybody was pretty comfortable. Hans came and ran sound for both nights; having him there gave me peace of mind.
Saturday: for our second night, we played Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Dark Side of the Moon, and our friends The REMakes played all of Document. Good stuff! I'd never played Fireplace before; I wonder how I'd overlooked that in the past?
Sgt. Pepper's was good. Paul Poovey played trumpet with us, and we had a good night--the tuning and phrasing were tight.
Dark Side went well. I was hoping I'd have all my stuff memorized so I could walk out front and play, but I never could get it all in my head. I bet I could have played three quarters of it without my charts, but one mistake would have screwed me up--I would have had to play my own stuff from there on. Anyway, I used my charts--probably my best attempt at this stuff ever.
We played Dark Side synced up to The Wizard of Oz. If you've never heard of it, there's a myth that all kinds of things line up. The Strand had a big screen that they lowered. It worked great. Here's a picture of us making noises during On the Run.
I hope we include the Strand in our future plans. It was a really good week for the band.
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