So…we loaded into the room super early (1 PM), piled our gear in the corner, and split. Dinner was at 6:30 PM. I left for a few hours, and then came back and spent an hour in one of the hotel rooms. That right there is pretty sweet. 6:30 was a small mishmash of food--go for the duck taco. At 7:45 the opening band (Moontower) finished, and we did the ol' throw and go. The results were not so great. All my gear had to go to the far side of the stage, and with the multiple Napoleon Dynamites for stage hands, there was always someone standing either in my path or my destination. One of my sax microphone transmitters would not turn on, so I troubleshot that as we were going. Also, the stage was pretty small, and there were cables everywhere. Who puts the snake for the PA in the downstage right corner? How about a more central location? It seemed like half the microphones on stage ran under my gear.
The first set was tough. There was some unresolved feedback coming from the vocal microphones. My sax mic (I switched my working pack back and forth between horns) also had a noisy moment when I turned sideways on stage. We persevered. The room was really hot--it felt like there was no air conditioning.
On the break, the sound guys ironed out the feedback issue (for the most part). Also, my dead mic transmitter finally came back to life--I think it got damp coming home from the Park Tavern last week. After a set where it sat out (and I stared at it--mental troubleshooting!), it came back from the dead.
Some lady came up to Bencuya on the break to tell him how much better he was than me, and how much more he contributed to the band. She can go to hell.
The awesome dude taking care of us brought me more duck tacos. I ate even though I was not hungry.
The second set was more tolerable. Most of the crowd (surprisingly) hung with us after the fireworks. Even though there was a band following us for the late night party, we still ended up doing an encore. They were cool about it, though.
Special thanks to Ganesh for sitting in on drums.
We loaded out, put everything in the trailer for our big road trip, and that was it! See you on the next one!
Upcoming gigs:
July 5: Mercy Lounge (Nashville)
July 8: Cape May Convention Center (Cape May, NJ)
July 10: Brooklyn Bowl (New York City)
July 11: Mohegan Sun (Montville, CT)
July 12: Power Plant Live (Baltimore)
July 13: Xfinity Live (Philadelphia)
July 14: The Hamilton (Washington DC)
July 20: Chastain Park Amphitheater (Atlanta)
July 26: The Orange Peel (Asheville)
In other news, I saw some videos of us from Woodstock. Turn the "saxaphone" up!
