Three More

Three different, unusual gigs for the Yacht Rock Revue over the past few weeks. 

#1. Thursday, September 16: Total Request Livestream from Venkman's. This was loose and kind of fun--sort of 10 High-ish, but none of us was drunk. All the requests had been submitted via social media earlier in the week, so there were no true surprises, but I did have to drag a few out from the basement of my brain.

It was funny to me that we had comments on a few songs like Silly Love Songs and Reminiscing that we played to death ten years ago--"Y'all should add those to the setlist!"

#2. Saturday, September 18: Birthday Party at the Buckhead Theatre. This one was a low key, almost background music sort of thing. People were very reserved (or very old), and so the sound was, dare I say, studio quality.

There were some good moments on this one, and I took a few good solos. We also had a bass playing Republican governor/TV personality in attendance who asked to sit in, and we said no thank you.

#3. Mission Ballroom in Denver, Colorado. We flew out the afternoon before (it's difficult to fly west on the day of show and then stay up to play the show in a different time zone).

I woke up on the flight out to find that my radicalized, fire breathing, super patriot seat mate was watching the Benghazi movie (13 Hours) on his iPad at the same time he was watching Full Metal Jacket on the in-flight entertainment, so I turned on MSNBC and went back to sleep.

Denver is beautiful. I went for a run and the weather was perfect.

Then, I walked over to an excellent Indian restaurant, called Mint,near our hotel. The waiter recognized me from two years ago ("You sat over there last time, right?"). You, sir, have just increased your tip!

I had vegetable biryani and a side of roti. 

 

And then I went back to my room, took, a shower, and went to bed. There was nothing else to do.

I slept for as long as I could, but it was still only 8:30, so I put on my shoes and went out for another run. 

After coffee and a shower, it was time for more Indian food! This time was aloo mutter and a side of roti. Outstanding!

Back to the hotel I went, but there wasn't really anything to do, so I took a Lyft over to the gig so that I could practice a little bit before soundcheck. I figured that was nicer than playing for an hour and a half in my hotel room.

The usual set up and soundcheck.

This is Saki...or is it Psaki? I don't know, but I'm a sucker for dogs at our gigs (maybe not the dog in Birmingham that pooped in the middle of the floor, though). 

More pre-gig noodling:  I was playing saxophone in a room backstage, and all of the sudden there was a metallic clang, kind of like kicking a fork on a concrete floor. It turns out that one of my resonators had broken free inside my horn. It's nothing major, but a weird, random occurrence nonetheless.

We were supposed to hit the stage at 8 PM, but it ended up being delayed forty-five minutes because it took so long to check everybody's COVID vaccination/test results. I guess these are the times in which we're living. Anyway, I felt really out of it for the first hour. I'm not sure why, but I just couldn't get my head in the game. 

Lot of people here.

And then it was over. Saturday morning, we went back to the airport and flew home.

I ended up leaving my little pouch of cables and headphones in the seat pocket on the plane home, and didn't realize it until I walked up to baggage claim in Atlanta. A Delta person tried to call the gate, but no one answered, so she made me a special "ticket" to get me through security (which was weird, because I never ended up showing it to anybody). I went through regular security (take your shoes off, the whole thing), rode the train out to Concourse E, walked to the end to the gate, and there was a plane, but no gate agent. No gate agent across the way, either, so I walked down the concourse until I found a two agents handling a flight to Jamaica. I explained my situation, and the guy (with a perfect Jamaican accent!), said "No mon. I don't know who told you that, but you need to walk down to Delta customer service, and they will help you." I walked all the way back to the center of Concourse E to the Delta customer service, and the first agent I spoke to didn't want to help. Se called the gate (of course nobody answered), and then kept trying to brush me off with stuff like "They throw stuff like that away when they clean the plane." The lady next to her was more optimistic, and she finally said, "I can walk him down there." She did, walked straight onto the plane, and returned three minutes later with my stuff. How about that! 

Here's my flute solo on Lowdown from the Denver show. Fueled by the food of India!