May 2024

Saturday, May 4, 2024: Columbia, SC. This gig was at a crawfish festival at the South Carolina state fair, closing out the day. My mom doesn't believe that there are enough crawfish in South Carolina to warrant a festival, but whatever.

The weather started out really nice, but an hour or so into it, a spot of rain found us, and it quickly got too wet to continue. Too bad, because it wasn't a bad gig!

The Great Bencuya finished up playing under a tarp that the ladies held up for him.

Friday, May 10, 2024: Atlanta, GA. Long time friend of the band Carrie Parker retired, and we played her party. The coolest thing about this was seeing lots of old friends from the earliest days of the band--people who actually saw us at the 10 High!

There were a few curveball requests from Carrie on the setlist, all of which we handled pretty well. Other than that, business as usual.

Monday-Wednesday, May 13-15, 2024: Atlanta, GA. The last of three blocks of summer rehearsals. I think we sorted some stuff out and learned some new songs, but we're basically taking a month off before we fully implement this stuff, so...hopefully it sticks!

In other exciting rehearsal news, the big ol' cyst on my index finger finally burst while we were playing, so hopefully it will begin healing and get out of my life.

Friday, May 17, 2024: Alpharetta, GA. This gig was a fundraiser for Hop on a Cure (John Hopkins' ALS charity), on an outdoor stage in someone's big backyard about an hour north of town.

Not my favorite gig! It had rained, so there was mud and thick humidity, and everybody entered the stage by walking through my gear, and we were the last of maybe four bands, and we were on some backline gear, and Monkeyboy's rental guitar amp died during the first song (so they swapped it out while we were playing), and probably some other stuff that I can't remember at this point. 

So the top keyboard was bigger than I usually get, and the bottom keyboard was smaller than I usually get. I would normally line up middle C on both keyboards as a visual reference, but I ended up pitching the piano on the bottom keyboard up an octave so I could do what I usually do with my left hand, but I kept the organ on the bottom keyboard where it would normally be...yeah, I was all over the place.

Saturday, May 18, 2024: Natick, MA. Hello early flight. I slept the whole way to Boston.

This gig was a birthday party in Natick, about a half hour west of Boston, in a brewery/taproom/vineyard place called Lookout Farm. Pretty cool! Our party was in an old greenhouse. 

I went for a run to kill some time, but no sidewalks. Kind of annoying.

This gig was pretty fun! We were supposed to play for an hour and a half, but they ended up cutting our part down to sixty minutes and a DJ did the rest. The rented gear was good, the sound was good, and our sub bass player (Tim Smith!) was good. Winner winner!

On our flight home the next day, there was a dog in the row in front of us. She was very well behaved.

Finger update: looks like it's healing.

Wednesday, May 22, 204: Isle of Palms, SC. Night one of three at The Windjammer. Has The Windjammer actually gotten better, or have we accepted our fate? Not sure. It was a nice gig, though, and the weather was pretty perfect. 

Thursday. Night two was sold out, and we had another good show. 

Friday. YRR is putting out another album of originals, and we had a special party for the Anchorheads to listen. I think they were more enthralled with hanging out with us than listening.

Here's the new jam.

Some passing storms forced us to start late, but nothing got wet. Another sold out crowd.

Saturday. Beth and I stopped for lunch in Charleston.