The big monkey wrench of the week was an hour's worth of Beatles songs on which I would be required to play the melody. Like most of western civilization, I am a casual Beatles fan, so I thought it best to write out lead sheets of the songs. It was determined that twenty-four was a safe number of songs to prepare. At about twenty minutes per lead sheet, that's eight hours of homework. Sounds manageable, right? I should mention that I am a master procrastinator.
Monday: With the conclusion of our northeastern tour, Yacht Rock flew home from Baltimore. I went home, did some housework, and played the Bumpin' the Mango gig. I did one lead sheet when I got home.
Tuesday: Dark Side of the Moon and new Beatles tunes (She Came in Through the Bathroom Window, The End, Something, Here Comes the Sun, and Rain). I had prepared all of this stuff before we left town the previous week, so this rehearsal was no big deal. Our gear arrived home from the northeast, so I had to deal with getting it all home and put away.
The afternoon I edited my charts and did some more housework. That night I wrote a few more lead sheets.
Wednesday: My cold was at its worst on this day, so I tried to sleep as late as possible. I wasted time during the day, taught in the evening, and did a couple of lead sheets.
Thursday: Another rehearsal Dark Side/Beatles rehearsal. This was the night I stayed up all night cranking out the bulk of the lead sheets. Hello 5 AM.
Friday: Gig day! This was our annual Dark Side of the Moon show, on this occasion paired with a big set of Beatles. Rob Opitz joined us on trumpet, nailing all of his parts, particularly the Penny Lane solo.
Sound check...
Greg Lee making the two of us martinis during yet another guitar solo.
Right around 900 people in the room on this night!
Rob Opitz playing the Penny Lane solo!
Super fun gig!
I've seen a couple of videos pop up on YouTube:
Dark Side of the Moon stuff:
Beatles stuff:
Saturday: back to reality. I got up and wrote the last three lead sheets, bringing my total to twenty-four. Yay.
Yacht Rock played a mega wedding, with added cocktail music (by Nick, Pete, and Greg). The remaining four of us we slotted to play our Beatles stuff. The timing of the evening got a little off, and we played almost thirty minutes. I think we made it through six or seven songs. I could've slept a lot more this week...oh well...
Other than that, it was a pretty easy wedding...EXCEPT FOR THE MULTIPLE EQUIPMENT MALFUNCTIONS! Holy cow. I'd left two batteries AA batteries charging in my charger at home. Two batteries died in my tenor sax microphone transmitter. I swapped that out with my remaining two good batteries. Then the EWI lost its wireless connection at the beginning of Peg. That was weird. Then the EWI began to lose battery power. I bummed four AA batteries off Zach (our sound engineer for the evening). Finally, I made it through the solo on Africa, only to have my laptop crash within five seconds of its end. Fortunately I got it back in time to play the outro (when I next needed it). Madness. All of my batteries are undergoing extensive recharging this week (except for Zach's batteries in the EWI).
Sunday: Sleep! I also put away my gear and played my church gig. Nothing to report from that.
This week is really slow; my only gig is with David Ellington (the Dave and Dave Duo!) at Sun in my Belly in Decatur on Friday between 7 and 9 PM.
Videos from our night there in December: