First gig ever for Yacht Rock in Mississippi. I haven't been to Biloxi since the 70s, so I really had no feel for what this one would be like. It turns out that Biloxi is a mix of Florida panhandle and Vegas. Think of that what you will.
Due to the preordained load in time of 11 AM Saturday, we had to leave Atlanta the day before. As we left town, we passed this person on Monroe/Boulevard, possibly moving into a new place? It was the first day of the month. Consider the man who carries and iron and a Clockwork Orange poster. What's he up to?
We stopped in Mobile for dinner. I had three cups of gumbo. Yeeeaaaaaaahhhhh. And a salad. Good stuff. After that, we did a little shopping. Remember how I forgot underwear on the tour to the midwest? This trip, I forgot my whole damn suitcase. Packed it and everything, but it never made it out the door. Nice work. Anyway, I had to buy toiletries, underwear, and a couple of t shirts. Nothing I won't use down the line, but dammit. What the hell is wrong with me?
My stage clothes were in a separate bag, so I was fine for the gig.
Westbound on I-10 there were multiple billboards with our name on it. Very cool. No good pics, though.
We arrived around 10:30 PM, and after dumping our luggage in our rooms, we did a lap around the casino floor. Nothing you wouldn't expect. We also checked out the band in the bar--they were actually quite good, and the lead singer/guitarist was very tall. Dude looked like a 6'8" version of Jim Brown.
Eventually we settled on hanging out in a room.
So...a hard night of sleeping, up at 10 AM for breakfast, and then we loaded in our gear poolside at 11 AM. Unfortunately, the sound crew showed up around 2 PM, and the lighting guy was a few minutes behind that. A load in/soundcheck so long that we left, ate lunch, came back, and still had time to stare at bikinis. At dinner I had three more cups of gumbo.
Special shout out to the lighting guy who wanted me to move all my gear a foot so that he could put one of his nifty lighting trusses in his favorite spot. The answer was no.
Second shout out to the lighting guy for aiming his oil based hazer/fogger machines at our gear (so the lights were better for the DJ?). Monkey's guitar took a direct blast that coated the whole thing in a light film of baby oil. Same for the puddle under Bencuya's keyboards. Welcome back!
The gig was fine, though. The sound on stage was good. We had Ganesh subbing for Mark Cobb on drums, and he played GREAT (and drove from Atlanta at 4 AM because of a gig the night before)! Afterwards we talked to people who'd driven from Houston and New Orleans, some crazies who flew from Los Angeles, and even one of our drinking buddies from our 10 High days in Atlanta (to whom Pete asked "How do you stay married?"). I guess we had a hundred people there for our set, most of whom dispersed with the return of the DJ.
Final shout out of the night to the lighting crew (and to a lesser extent the sound guys) who tried to disassemble and pack up their gear on stage while we were trying to pack up our gear. Thanks for nothing.
The next day, we left at 7 AM. Ouch.
