March 2026

Picking up from the end of February, where we'd just played a show in Ft Worth, and now were leaving the bus tour to go and play a one-off corporate gig in San Diego...

March 2, 2026: Travel day. We weren't scheduled to leave the hotel in Texas until noon, so I got up and ran a little bit in the morning, just in case I didn't feel like doing any exercise at the end of the day. A quick four miles, a shower, and then onto the airport shuttle. 

I had a crappy lunch at a TGI Fridays in the airport (another fake hamburger and fries). Eventually, we got on the plane at D/FW and flew to San Diego for a private gig, with a brief, rainy layover in Salt Lake City. 

 

The hotel where we stayed in San Diego had these really weird elevators with no buttons for individual floors on the inside.

You scanned your key card where you'd normally push the button to call and elevator, and it would assign you to a particular car (and if you weren't fast enough to get on it in time, you were outta luck!).

Inside the elevator, it would tell you what floor you'd be traveling to. Very strange. It took a few tries for me to get used to the order of operations.

Since it was right across the street from the hotel, I did have to step inside to see this.

The piano from the Top Gun's "Great Balls of Fire" scene.

Onward to dinner at an Indian restaurant. It was reeeeeeeeeaaaaaallly good. I was also very hungry.

I went back to my room, changed clothes, and went out for a shorter run (two miles) before giving up on the day.

Tuesday, March 3, 2026: San Diego, CA. 

The view from my hotel room.

The view from my run. Which was great. I always run along the bay, past the Star of India, past the airport, and it's always great. If we flew to San Diego tomorrow morning, you'd find me running that route tomorrow afternoon.

Today's gig was some sort of massive corporate party at Petco Park. Our green room was in one of the suites of the baseball stadium.

Before setup, it was time for some lunch. There was pasta and salad. Nothing particularly extraordinary, but it did the job of refueling after my run.

The gig was behind the batter's eye. There's a stage and a big plaza out there.

The gear came from S.I.R San Diego. Not the greatest stuff--we had crummy keyboard stands, and I ended up with a small bottom keyboard and a giant top keyboard, and I ended up stacking them on these stupid keyboard stands, and the top keyboard was far away and the bottom keyboard's stand had no legroom. I was not in a good spot!

turn the volume knob "carefuly"

I did get in a pretty good warmup, and my in ear mix was actually pretty dang good at soundcheck, so...things were looking up!

More pasta for dinner...(I also ate green beans, potatoes, and fruit)

We had a meet-and-greet scheduled, but it ended up being about five minutes of us posing for pictures with some VIPs. Then, back to hanging around with this doofus until it was time to play.

It was a pretty OK gig in a really nice setting. The people, for the most part ignored us, but San Diego was lovely, so who cares?

I had a few gear problems--as soon as the gig began, one of my volume pedals decided to die, so I unplugged it. The one of the sustain pedals would die, but then it would come back to life for about two and a half songs, and then it would die. You could revive it by plugging it and then plugging it back in, but it would die again in a few minutes. That was mildly annoying.

I noticed in packing up my stuff after the gig that I'd not done a good job putting my alto down after Baker Street, and the horn was just about to fall of the sax stand. Man, that would've really been bad news.

Shout out to my space heater that I flew all the way here in my suitcase! It was in the low sixties and breezy, and my heater definitely helped.

Wednesday, March 4, 2025: San Diego to Denver. We flew on Southwest Airlines. It wasn't too bad. It also wasn't too crowded.

Back in mountain time, the crew bus had broken down. It was taken in for repairs, and the bus company dispatched a replacement (two drivers drove a bus nonstop from Atlanta to Denver!).

Back on our bus, I had a peanut butter lunch. Onward to Boulder!

It was nice to see our gear again.

I did squeeze in a short run and a burrito before the show started, as well as a backstage warmup. 

I was definitely feeling the altitude after being at sea level the night before.

Fun gig! This evening's Wheel of Chorus: Careless Whisper, Love Will Find A Way, and Purple Rain.

Thursday, March 5, 2026: Aspen, CO. Back at The Belly Up, 

After coffee, I went for a trail run. It was tough because of the altitude, but maaaaan, the scenery was gorgeous. I ran with a British guy named James who was training for three Ironman races.

Another impossible burger and fries.

dog sighting!

The stage here is small, is we had to set up almost one at a time to make it work. After that, I played flute in the stairwell, and then after soundcheck, another hour of saxophone playing. The room started to smell like sewage and it got worse throughout the day.

Thai food for dinner

Almost 7,900 feet up

We sold it out again, and hopefully nobody left because it smelled like a hot toilet that hadn't been flushed in months.

We played well, in spite of the stage layout (Kourtney ended up kind of behind me, and the third keyboard station ended up facing me). I brought my heater in for this one, but only needed it for the first third of the night.

Most of the crowd was into it, but the plaid shirt guy in front of Monkeyboy seemed pretty miserable for the whole night. Maybe he was not happy about the smell.

Wheel of Chorus tonight: Turn Your Love Around, Golden Girls, Lonesome Loser, and What a Fool Believes.

In other news, I took a pretty bad Lowdown solo (it just went off in a weird direction and couldn't make anything out of my mess), but my solo on Just the Two of Us was good.

Someone delivered tequila shots to the stage, but nobody handed me one, so...I could've been the lone survivor. I guess they were just tequila shots, though.

By the time we'd finished, the snow was coming down pretty hard. We slept here until the early morning, and by that time, it had snowed ten inches, and the buses were temporarily stuck.

Friday, March 6, 2026: Beaver Creek, CO. The drive was hard on the buses. The crew bus lost a door on the engine compartment, and the band bus was a dirty-snow mess.

Early load in/early show. The crew guys had time to jam. Van on guitar, Hans on bass, and Taylor on drums.

Lots of time (and space) to play flute. I was sharing a dressing room with Nick, but he and Pete had gone skiing. 

lunch

Ugh. I was not prepared to run at 8,000 feet, and I wasn't prepared to run outside when the temperature was twenty-three degrees. I put on all my running clothes, plus some of my dirty clothes, and it was ok. Most of my running took place running down the mountain. On the way back up, there was a lot more walking.

Dinner was pretty good. It was (maybe)  homemade chana masala, but no rice...it was spicy and good. There were also brussel sprouts and veggies, and I had some of that, too. Twas a high fiber day.

Another sell out. This place is really nice, even if the altitude makes my saxophones feel terrible. 

I'm not talking about it any more, but the Africa solo was just about perfect. High five me.

Wheel of Chorus: Rich Girl, Biggest Part of Me, and Purple Rain.

When I was packing up after the show, my big sax case fell over and landed on the bell of my tenor, breaking my microphone (at the elbow in the picture below) and knocking the horn back onto my stool. The horn didn't hit the ground and seemed to be playing fine (who the hell can tell at this altitude, though!).

Hopefully a good amount of superglue will get my microphone back together, at least enough to get through our Colorado trip.

Saturday, March 7, 2026: Steamboat Springs, CO. The bus stayed parked at the top of the mountain in Beaver Creek until 8 AM. I was awake for our departure, and then immediately fell back to sleep, and didn't wake up until we arrived at the next gig three hours later.

I went from coffee straight into lunch:  peanut butter sandwich, and apple, and three bananas.

Today's run was really beautiful, and relatively flat, , mostly plowed pathways, and lower altitude. A big win!

some of it was not so easy

The venue had no showers--what is that bullshit?  We had rooms at a nearby hotel, though.  so I jumped in a Lyft and went to get clean, and then it took me twenty minutes to find a ride back for soundcheck, even though it was only 

cauliflower tacos for dinner

Our third sellout! We'd played here five years ago, coming out of Covid, out in the parking lot. You can read about it HERE. This time, we were thankfully indoors. 

This room had a noise ordinance, and by the end of the first song, we were already above it, and Kip got on his talkback mic to ask Nackers to put a towel on the snare drum to bring down the volume.

Wheel of Chorus stuff. The first person picked to spin the wheel broke it. Pete got it back together enough that we could carry on. Rich Girl, Careless Whisper, and We Will Rock You.

We also had two rounds of tequila shots. I survived both.

The bus stopped the next morning between Denver and the Denver airport so that everybody could be ready to jump out the door when we finally got to the airport, which was really fun, but at least we got to go home.

Thursday, March 12, 2026: Orlando, FL. We rode the bus overnight from Atlanta to Orlando. 1 woke up in the middle of the night when we’d stopped for fuel and decided to go up front and use the restroom. Unfortunately, the pocket door separating the bunks from the front lounge was held shut with a magnet and Velcro, and there was no easy way to pry it open! 1 guess Ganesh was already awake; he got up and helped me get it open before I peed on the floor. Later I found out that Mark Bencuya had had a similar experience.

Anyway, the bus was eventually parked at the Orlando House of Blues loading dock, where I drank my coffee before venturing out for a run. 

After that, I ate the Pub Sub that I'd brought from home because the food at Disney is gross. It was around this time that we individually began noticing that the front lounge of the bus smelled like rotten eggs. Everybody immediately suspected our bus driver, Ben, of eating something gross while we were asleep.

Anyway, I had plenty of time for a good warmup. My horns felt really responsive in the warm, humid air of Florida. Colorado sax players don't know what they're missing!

Another successful Orlando House of Blues gig. The Wheel of Chorus: Baby Come Back, Lonesome Loser, and Thank You For Being a Friend (Golden Girls theme). 

We heard a rumor that this House of Blues is going to shut down. That'd be just fine with me.

The rotten eggs smell on the bus got worse and worse, and by the time we were going to bed, it was all over the bus, and the smell was so potent that we opened all the windows. Hopefully whatever was making the smell wasn't making us sick.

Friday, March 13, 2026: Clewiston, FL. Ahhh, Friday the thirteenth! 

We got answers...one of the batteries under the front of the bus got too hot in the Florida heat. We were breathing hydrogen sulfide gas. Greeeeeaaaat...

Today's gig was in south Florida (on the south side of Lake Okeechobee) in Clewiston at the Sugar Festival. That's the main thing in this part of the state, and the sugar companies throw a festival for the local workers.

Nothing exciting to report about this one, other than the fact that nobody died from the boiling battery. I had a peanut butter sandwich, went for a run, and spent a lot of time noodling on my horns behind the stage. It was a long, boring day in Florida. None of us were in the mood for this.

back of the stage

The weather was pleasant for an outdoor show, and the crowd was ok. There was thrust/catwalk thing out in front of us, but no lighting was aimed at it, so once it got dark, we weren't supposed to go out there for solos. 

post-show fireworks

No showers here, but there was a hotel with a couple of day rooms that we rotated through before heading back to Atlanta.

Sunday, March 15, 2026: Atlanta, GA. Back in town for a gig! We played Team Hidi, which is a benefit for restaurant workers in need. A little chilly today!

Rich Gunderlock opened for us

lots of waiting

I wasn't in the mood to do this one, but I'm also glad that I didn't have to play my church gig, so I guess this was fine. Also, I live close enough to here that I didn't have to drive on the interstate, so that's a plus. What else...it kind of feels like most of the people attending forgot about the point of all this, and are just here for the fancy food and the chance to be the cool people. 

Monday-Wednesday, March 16-18, 2026: Atlanta, GA. Stop Making Sense (Talking Heads) rehearsals. I don't have much to do on this show, and the parts aren't difficult. I was bored. Everybody else likes it, though.

Thursday, March 17, 2026: Athens, GA. Stop Making Sense in Athens. I miss playing gigs here. Maybe not this gig, though.

I drove myself so that I could jump in my car after the show and drive straight home (instead of waiting for everybody, driving all the way to Atlanta, and then driving out to Marietta). One of the highlights of today.

The other highlight of the day was this trail that Kip showed me. It was a pleasant run.

There's now an Indian restaurant next to the Georgia Theatre. The food is lame, though. Kind of a bummer.

waiting to join the rest of the band on stage

The Great Bencuya, doing great things

Friday, March 20, 2026: Atlanta, GA. Back at the Variety Playhouse. More of the same. I'd hoped to escape immediately after this show, too, but the local crew guys blocked our cars in--a strategic error on my part to not just pay for parking!--so I had to hang around for almost an hour until they were released from their duties.

hanging around backstage for my part of the show

Saturday, March 21, 2026: Kennesaw, GA. I got a call to play in the pit for the spring musical at Kennesaw State University. I guess the music department doesn't crank out woodwind players who double (play flute and clarinet). So here I am in the pit, playing piccolo, flute, alto flute, and clarinet.

The whole thing is pretty amateurish, and I have some regrets about accepting this job. My initial thought was that I didn't need the money (I make plenty on the Yacht Rock gig), so making low dough for the chance to be a pit musician (one of my favorite gigs) was no big deal. Now, I'm thinking that having a minimum price would've either kept from doing a frustrating gig, or would've at least compensated me a little better. I guess that's what I'm learning here.

Friday, March 27, 2026: Bethlehem, PA. Last year when we did this gig, we had a really early flight and I was so mad and so tired. This year looked to be much more reasonable--a 12:30 PM flight--but the government shutdown and upaid TSA situation has the Atlanta airport in a mess. The crew guys had a 7:30 flight and we there by 4 AM. I was in line at 8 AM. The line was long, but it kept moving, and it took me fifty minutes to make it through.

You can read about last year's trip at the bottom of this blog post (HERE).

I went to the gate, set my alarm, and went to sleep. Apparently I had visitors.

I got on the plane, slept some more, and eventually woke up to eat my lunch--another Pub Sub, and an apple.

Anyway, I was ok this year (got enough sleep to make it). I even had time to squeeze in a run after soundcheck.

dinner at Moe's

Even though I didn't do much of a warm up, I played fine. This room was bigger than I remember it being.

Wheel of Chorus: bass solo (Groove is in the Heart tonight), Purple Rain, and Easy (I actually got my part right for a change!). The lady who spun Easy was right down on the center aisle, and we all thought she had a baby strapped to her chest, but it turned out she had a small dog in some kind of a harness! I can't imagine any situation where my dog Finn would be ok with the people and the noise and the lights.

Pete got a new tambourine. When I was using it for Hold the Line, it poked me--I thought it was the pin that holds the jingles, but the next time I hit it, it flexed around my hand. I'd broken it on night one.

We had post-show pizza.

Saturday, March 28, 2026: Atlantic City, NJ. Noon checkout! The crew guys went earlier with the gear, but the band left at noon, so I went and ran on the treadmill in the morning because it was thirty degrees outside and I didn't bring enough clothes for that.

The usual stuff...I got in a good warmup because most of the band went to their hotel rooms, leaving me a free dressing room for a couple of hours.

Several of us went to White House Subs for dinner. I highly recommend it if you find yourself here.

Wheel of Chorus: bass solo (we played the end of The Chain tonight), Thank You For Being a Friend/Golden Girls, We Will Rock You (I don't know why this ever comes up--Nick doesn't know the words), and Careless Whisper. The guy who picked We Will Rock You was a rogue spinner who somehow got on stage (he also tried to sing on Golden Girls at Monkeyboy's microphone and Peter Searcy grabbed him by the neck and pulled him off). 

big crowd

nice hotel room

awesome sandwich

Several of us got up crazy early (5:30 AM lobby call) to drive back to Philly to fly home. The last thing I remember before passing out was that we had to go get de-iced before taking off because it was cold.

Made it back to Atlanta. This parking lot machine ate my credit card. A guy eventually came and fished it out. I still had to pay. There should be a freebies for that!

Made it to my church gig. Here's some of what it sounded like.

Tuesday, March 31, 2026: Atlanta,, GA.  Management is hard at work coming up with a new show for the year, and new bits of stage furniture, and rugs and a box in which to hide my keyboards. We also did some individual video shots. Come to a show and see how it turned out. I just want to play music, but this is happening anyway. I guess it's part of the job now.