Here we go - a weekend in the the Northeast, playing gigs, sleeping, and running.
Thursday: Montclair, NJ. We flew into Newark, hopped in the van, and rolled over to The Wellmont Theatre for a show. This is our second (?) time playing this room, which is an enormous cave of a place. It looks cool, but it's really boomy.
We had a good size crowd (800-850, I think?) but there were lots of tickets given away, so maybe a third of the people there had no idea about us. Still, not too bad for a Thursday.
Friday: We slept late, and I went for a run through East Rutherford, NJ.
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| This woodchuck no longer chucks wood |
Then, off to Long Island! We were back at The Paramount in Huntington. I remember that the first time we played here, this place looked to be the size of a hockey arena. Now, it just looks like the same size room we play everywhere else. That being said, this is an incredible venue.
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| this, on the stage of the Paramount, never gets old |
The first time we played here, there were 300 people in the audience (we weren't even advertised as Yacht Rock Revue-the marquee said 70s Light Rock Music or something like that). The second time we were here, 400 people. Tonight, 1,300 people. We're catching on at The Paramount.
I can't say enough about how excellent this place is, from the guys that bring our gear in, to the hospitality, to the sound of the room, to the audience. This is one of the best places we play.
We played a great show, by the way. It was a ton of fun.
Saturday: More sleeping, more running, and another dead animal. Shout out to CVS for letting me use their restroom. Desperate times.
Back to Jersey, this time to Asbury Park and the Wonder Bar. We've played a couple of public shows here, but tonight was a wedding.
This load in suuuuuuuuuuuucks.
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| random building with my middle name on it |
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| The Asbury Park boardwalk in all its glory |
If you can imagine Jersey shore people who rent out their favorite bar to host their wedding reception, that was our crowd Saturday night--they were ready to party, which made for a fun evening. They liked everything we played. Even the guy from Fox News who was there--he liked it.
Fun gig, and it sounded pretty great on stage.
Sunday: Let's see--NJ on Thursday, NY on Friday, NJ on Saturday, so....back to New York! But first, another late morning run after sleeping as late as possible.
Most of this run was on the shoulders of four lane roads. Not ideal, but ok on a Sunday morning.
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| no dead animals! |
Tonight's gig: another wedding! This time at City Winery in Manhattan. Another less than ideal load in and small stage, but at this point, who cares?
Much time to kill after soundcheck, so I went for another run, this time around the southern end of the city.
This gig was unusual in that bride was a Broadway actress (not sure about the groom), so she was one of the performers at the reception. We played What the World Needs Now, backing a choir of about twenty people, Jersey Girl, backing one of the actors from Jersey Boys, and a four part vocal arrangement of You Make My Dreams Come True. It was a lot of work (especially on What the World Needs Now), but the performances were kinda awesome! I really enjoyed putting that together.
We flew home Monday, but we'll be back a week from Thursday to pick it up again with shows in NYC at Playstation Theatre (Thursday), the Royale in Boston (Friday), a wedding in Brooklyn (Saturday), and The Hamilton in DC (Sunday). Keep keepin' on.
In the mean time, I'll be playing with The Atlanta Latin Jazz Orchestra this Thursday night at Venkman's. 7:30 PM!