Outdoorsmen

Last Friday, I was invited to participate in a local podcast titled The Drummers Weekly Groovecast, hosted by Phil Smith, a friend of mine for over twenty years. The topic of the show? Outdoor gigs! Tis the season...there will be heat and humidity, but there may also be blazing sun, ferocious thunderstorms, and swarms of bugs. Nothing too profound was mentioned, but here it is anyway...




So...ugh. I hate the sound of my voice.

Saturday: Boom! Outdoor gig! I played with Scott Glazer's Mojo Dojo at a place in Alpharetta called Matilda's. I've seen pictures of other people playing this venue, and it looked pretty cool--the band sets up on the porch of a small house and plays to people sitting in the yard. It's kind of a backyard concert sort of thing. Could be cool.

Unfortunately, Matilda's is moving from the old location to a new location, and in the mean time, their setup is in a lot behind an old barn. It's in pretty bad condition. That's a tarp bungeed over some cables, and old painter's scaffolding for a (bouncy) stage. The PA is sounds really beat up, and there are a few lights right at eye level aimed at the band. Also, the power is coming from a generator, and it may or may not have fried both the bass and guitar amps.

don't drop anything!

In spite of all this, we had a decent turnout, and the people were nice and liked the music, and I like the relaxed vibe of it. When they move to the new place, it's going to be cool, but this spot is not.

The Mojo Dojo gig is pretty loose, so there was no pressure, and we didn't crash and burn on anything, but we tried a couple of times.

Sunday: Yacht Rock was back in action, this time outside at a festival in Charlotte, NC. 95 degrees at load in.

There was a threat of a thunderstorm, so we put a giant tarp over our gear, causing the rain to immediately dissipate.

And then after a long afternoon of sitting around (I did squeeze in a run on a treadmill where we were hanging out), we finally hit the stage around 8 PM. Pretty good gig! I felt pretty connected to what was going on on stage (not always the case lately), so maybe I've turned some sort of corner.

The temperature mercifully leveled off once the sun went down, and the crowd of maybe 1,200 was very calm for all the beer and sun they'd had that day.

One more thing--there was a large drain right in front of the stage that was connected to a very foul sewer line, and every time the wind would blow towards us, it was like somebody had knocked over a porta-potty. How all those people withstood the smell, I'll never know.

Somebody recorded several songs. Check 'em out.




















Onward! Gigs this weekend:

1. Friday: Park Tavern in Atlanta
2. Saturday: Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh, NC
3. Sunday: House of Blues in Myrtle Beach, SC
4. Monday: Music Farm in Charleston, SC
5. Tuesday: some kind of private thing in Sea Island, GA