Charlotte's Washout

Yacht Rock headed north to Charlotte, NC Saturday morning for a show at the Oysterfest.  We arrived and loaded in just as the rain began.  It stopped long enough for us to drag gear to the outdoor stage, set up, and soundcheck.  

Unfortunately, the showers returned off and on up til and during the beginning of our first set.

I have no explanation for this.  It didn't work, by the way.

 It seemed like the weather was going to hold off, and by the end of the first set, we had a pretty decent crowd.  The forecast that I looked at said that the rain chance of rain was only about 50% until 9 PM.  Great...rainy load out.

Unfortunately, we didn't make it that far.  On the break, the rain picked back up, and at one point it got pretty heavy.  I hopped back on stage to check on everything (translation: I was tired of talking to people).  Bad news.  The rain had come through the corner where Zach and Kip had set their mixer.  Their electronics were wet and thus they'd been forced to shut everything down, ending the gig.  In the process of collecting microphones, they'd discovered that my gear (in the opposite corner) had also been blasted with rain.  My saxophones, flute, and piccolo were dripping with water.  There was an inch deep puddle in front of my keyboards.  Not good.

It was a very bad state of affairs.  If the pads on each instrument were soaked, they'd all have to be replaced (at around $200-250 per instrument)--a pretty grim feeling as I poured water out of one horn.  I did my best to dry each one inside and out, put them away, and hoped for the best.

My keyboards were relatively dry, and Zach had grabbed my EWI and laptop and moved them first, so they were ok.

That ended my night.

We loaded out in a steady rain, but the trailer was packed up by 10 PM, so we decided to head home instead of spending the night.  Back in Atlanta at 2:30 AM, home around 3:15 AM, all the gear unpacked and spread around my dining room table and floor by 4 AM.

Sunday, I checked out a few of my electronic things (laptop, effects pedal, Nord keyboard), and everything seemed fine.  I checked the piccolo and flute, and they seemed fine.  The tenor had a two leaks in the middle of the horn (A and F), which I doubt had anything to do with the rain.  The alto had a leak at the low C# and that pad had a big stain on it like it'd been saturated with water, so I'm guessing that's the extent of my rain damage.  

Zach's mixer had some more serious issues and will need to return to the manufacturer for repairs.