Saturday, April 6, 2024: Savannah, GA. The helicopter gig (as we know it) again, on the driving range again, but with a better (covered) stage. I love the helicopters. The gig is whatever.
I was a little worried because the forecast said it was going to be a bit chilly/breezy, so I brought my heater and some hand warmers, and I was tucked into an enclosed corner of the stage.
Not much else to report. The vegetarian option for food was a grilled cheese sandwich.
I ran on the treadmill when we got to the hotel, as there was no time to squeeze it in before the gig.
Thursday, April 18, 2024: Atlanta, GA. Following three days of summer rehearsals, we played a private gig at the Buckhead Theatre. It's still a very stale room.
We did immediately try several of our new cover songs out, and they went well--no train wrecks!
Thursday, April 25, 2024: Destin, FL. The first time we played here, I never thought we'd have to come back (it's a stage in a sandy field between some neighborhoods), but here we are for the first year in a row. I guess it's fine. The six hour van ride to get here really sucked the energy out of wanting to play the gig, though (even though a slept for most of the trip). Always a good crowd, though.
This show was shorter than usual (and started at 7 instead of 8 PM), so I ran before and after the gig.
Friday, April 26, 2024: Birmingham, AL. Another big van ride--this one was five hours, but our van left pretty early so that the production guys could get some setup stuff done before the instruments showed up.
This was our biggest crowd at Avondale Brewing--at least, it had the biggest ticket sales. No Charles Barkley on this night, though.
What else...my alto reed was very soft--probably time to swap it out for a new one.
I still haven't found a good running route here--it's one of those places where the sidewalks abruptly stop in random places, only to begin again in two blocks.
Following the show, we drove about halfway back to Atlanta (Pell City, AL), because we had a morning flight out of the Atlanta airport.
Saturday, April 27, 2024, Las Vegas, NV. Up early (7 AM) to drive back to Atlanta to jump on a plane to Vegas for a corporate gig. I slept pretty well on the flight, though I was awake over Oklahoma City long enough to eat the burrito I'd brought on board. Very tired.
The gig was the ol' corporate party in a big ballroom for a bunch of rich people. There was a duo set up on the opposite side of the room that did rat pack/Vegas show stuff, and when they finished, everybody turned around and partied on our side.
The backline company for this one was pretty good. The only had the cheap Guitar Center keyboard stands, so I had to stack two single stands (in the style of The Great Bencuya!), but this was a better move than having a foot wide gap between the two.
The Fantom (top keyboard) that they brought had a loose memory card, so Eric, the backline guy, had to take the panel off the back, clean and reseat it to get it to work. Scary moment for a second there.
The Nord Five--the piano sounds were really bright and loud compared to the organ. Are these factory settings? I wonder. I guess I could've tried to reset it, but I didn't notice until the gig had started, so I just rode the volume knob all night.
The local audio crew was not ideal. There were three or four guys, but only one spoke English, so all requests had to be made through a translator. They also dispatched some stuff (which drove Zach crazy), and the process of sorting it out took a little extra time when we were all short on patience.
Anyway...we stayed in the same hotel. Check out this room!
We finished soundcheck around 4 PM and we didn't play until 9:30 PM (body clock says ouch!), so here are some pics from my run.
Monkeyboy was unavailable for this gig, so we had Cody Matlock filling in on guitar.
These were cool--they were video screens hung around the room to make it look like windows on a ship.
We finished at 11:30 PM, so by the time I had made it back to my room, packed everything, taken a shower, and fallen into bed it was around 1 AM. I was awake at 4:30 AM and sitting in the airport shuttle at 5 AM.
The Sphere looked like the moon this morning. Kip had the great quote: "That's no moon."
Wednesday, March 6, 2024: Orlando, FL. Another early flight--I left home at 6:45 AM, and we were in Central Florida at 11 AM--for an 8:30 PM gig. Such is life. I spent the rest of the day sneaking in cat naps.
This was a corporate thing for a golf tournament (I wanna say Arnold Palmer/Bay Hill, but I'm not one hundred percent sure). We were at the Hard Rock Live, situated on the Universal Studios property, which meant that there were lots of fences and security guards.
The Dave School is here, too. It turns out that Dave is an acronym for Digital Animation and Visual Effects, not, you know...me. I'm mildly disappointed. I could teach those younger Daves a thing or two!
Not much else to say about this, so how was the running? Getting off property was a bit challenging. The gate directly opposite the loading dock would not allow pedestrians in or out, and the guard seemed really confused as to why anyone would want to run anywhere. He sent me in a general direction. Nobody seemed to care that there was a random guy jogging around on the backlot of Nickelodeon. The next security gate was also not pedestrian friendly, but her directions were better, so I cut through a building and came out the other side at the correct gate, and they set me free. I went and ran around the perimeter of the property, but I ran out of sidewalk, so I had to double back, but eventually, I accumulated enough distance that I was satisfied with going back to the Hard Rock. Some of the security was confused (dude shows up at the gate in running clothes, no ID, but a Hard Rock lanyard and a printed security sticker from earlier in the day). I guess I should've tried "I'm DAVE! From The DAVE School!"
Anyway, half a day later, we played this gig (following comedian Frank Calliendo, who opened for us). The show was an hour long. The crowd remained seated. They were very polite. Nothing memorable.
Greg's brother was there, too.
Saturday, March 16, 2024: Wilmington, VT. Check out the travel details on this one! I left home at 6 AM; we caught a flight to Hartford, CT; got in a sprinter van, drove north through Massachusetts to a ski resort in Wilmington, VT, a drive of roughly 90 miles.
We were playing a concert for members of the ski lodge. Very nice place. I didn't grow up with anybody who snow skied, so this place was weird and affluent. Lunch would've been expensive if I'd had to pay for it myself.
So yeah, kind of a weird gig. Rented gear. My tenor got bent (woah!) by Delta baggage handling, but I could blow hard and make it work--it was just super leaky.
The running was not ideal. I ran down to the main road, but there were no sidewalks, so I opted to run on a gravel road right outside the entrance, and the was very hilly and pretty wet, and eventually hit a dead end, so I got to deal with all those hills again (and the barking dogs--hello!), and then I had to walk/run back up the hill to the lodge. I was still short on distance, so I ran a couple of miles worth of laps in the parking lot, which was also pretty crappy.
I guess the gig was fine? By that point, it was late in the day and I was tired and kind of over it, so I don't remember anything in particular, other than my tenor feeling stuffy. At the time, I thought it might be because of the elevation, but Wilmington, VT (1,565 feet) isn't significantly different from Marietta, GA (1,129 feet).
Thursday, March 21, 2024: Chateau Elan, GA. I got hired to play in a jazz quartet for a private party at Chateau Elan, a winery northeast of Atlanta. The gig started at 5:45, and I mistimed the traffic poorly enough that I showed up at 5:20, cutting it a little close. Pulled my horn out of the gig bag and I was ready to go by 5:30!
Check out these sweet dirt samples.
This was some kind of party for a non-profit that helps people transition from prison back to the world, and they had dinner and an art auction and some speeches, which meant lots of little breaks built into a two hour hit.
The best part was that they cut us loose for the last speech, seven or eight minutes early, so when the gig actually was supposed to end, I was already on I-85 southbound. I feel like I got away with something.
Saturday, March 23, 2024: Atlantic City, NJ. It seems like Yacht Rock should've played a gig by now in an Atlantic City casino, but here we were, doing our first. And it was another Hard Rock!
The weather was pretty crappy, with cold rain and strong winds, and I'm glad that somebody else got to unload all of our gear.
It was another Hard Rock Live! This was a small arena that held 7,000. I think we had it almost half full for our show.
The rain stopped, so I tried running outside. The wind gusts were so strong that they'd just about stop you dead in your tracks. I usually try and do out-and-back runs so that I don't get lost, but I hit multiple dead ends on this one. Looks like I should have left the casino (green dot) and turned left instead of going straight.
The casino had multiple restaurants, but they were all really full. I was able to find a table at the Thai place. This was just what I needed.
Pretty solid gig. We're playing so infrequently these days that I wonder how it's going to be when we jump on stage with no momentum, but we had a good time on this one.
These were hot tubs set up on one side of the arena. It didn't look like anybody was in them during the gig--I wonder if they advertised that this would be a thing?
Friday, March 29, 2024: Atlanta, GA. Yacht Rock played Nick's sister's wedding. Six songs, none of which I'd ever played in my entire illustrious career of playing weddings. Actually, it was even easier for me--I only played on three of the six songs! Two sax solos, though--one on the Dusty Springfield version of Spooky, and one on Donna Summer's On the Radio.
The third assignment I had was to play the string part on this jam. The bride played bass. Epic.
The flowers arrangements were insane. We had tacos, and doughnuts for dessert.
The best part about this party was the chance to see so many people that we used to be around during the first three or four years of YRR. All of the sudden ten years have gone by, and we're all so much older.
Anyway, once the DJ started, people began to sneak out. We gave Bencuya a ride home.
