VA-MD-NYx2

Ahh! We're rolling now! Four Yacht Rock Revue gigs last weekend, beginning in Virginia and finishing in New York. It's great to get a little momentum in our schedule.

Thursday: We flew out to a gig in Virginia Beach.

Stacked up in Atlanta. I'm kind of impressed that I wasn't already asleep by this point in the flight.

This one was strange, to say the least. We played a Thursday nighter in a country bar (complete with a Cowboy Troy style emcee)--a free show for god-only-knows who's going to show up. The skies over Virginia Beach/Norfolk are thick with Navy jets, and the largest Navy base in the world is right here. Would it be a Top Gun situation?

Uh, no. More like a Wild Wing Cafe situation. I did watch a bit of the NFL preseason game (Dallas and Arizona), and endless repeats of some bro country jackass's music video/commercial on the ten TVs ringing the room.

Other things...fruit for dinner, courtesy of the Walmart across the street--way better than bar food...opened my garment bag to discover that I'd packed no shirts in my stage clothes--I borrowed a spare shirt from Nick and wore it four days in a row...plenty of possible strippers on the dance floor...easy load in/out.

Friday: On to Baltimore! We spent most of the day in the van, and traffic compounded our problems. We pulled up to the door at 6:15 (instead of 5). Everybody worked quickly to get set up and sound checked in an hour, leaving us about an hour to eat and change. Special thanks to Kip and Zach for getting us up and running so quickly!

Pretty decent gig, all things considered. The crowd was excellent--pretty good for a rare public show in Baltimore, and I had a good solo on Turn Your Love Around. Kind of a boomy room, though, but the stage was a good size. I certainly wouldn't mind coming through here again.

Here's the show:

all hail Kip's pack job

Saturday: Oyster Bay, Long Island wedding. We had to learn some god awful modern pop song, but they apologized for it after the reception. Other than that, kind of a normal gig. Billy Joel apparently lives ten doors down.

Mark Cobb anticipated my boat pictures in this blog, and though I deleted a few, here they are. Amazing views. Being rich looks fun.

little photo session

We spent the night in a very strange Holiday Inn--the most ass-backwards layout in the universe.

this dude passed out waiting for his laundry to finish

Sunday: We finished out this run with a summer concert in Great Neck, NY. This is our third attempt to play here--the previous two years have been rained out (forcing us to use the school auditorium). You can relive our 2016 attempt here, and our 2015 attempt here.

More boats, more Long Island Sound.

This place was beautiful!  The weather was perfect (almost 80 and overcast).

making small talk before the show

smoke from a distant fire

Everything looked great and sounded great, and we played great and had a great time--a very pleasant way to end the weekend. You can see a set of pro photos from the show here.

Monday: We adjusted our flights to beat most of the bad weather hitting La Guardia this morning, but it was still a little wet. Made it home in time for a late lunch.

IL/IN

Back on the road!

Friday: Chicago--one of our favorite places to be. This would be our second time playing the House of Blues in Chicago (the first was a strange but awesome one, filled with ticket-giveaway-recipients). This time was no fluke--we've done very well at Joe's on Weed Street and Joe's in Rosemont, and now we were moving up to a bigger, more awesome venue.

Load in is an alley under Dearborn Ave, right at the river. This dude's job (evidently) is to sit in a folding chair, facing the building. I'm not sure if the plan is for him to stop people from coming out, or going in.

The last time we played here, I was immediately awed by the size of the room. This time I walked in and said, "Oh, it's a House of Blues." It's about the same size as every other HoB we've played. Funny how times change.

In between soundcheck and the show, I went for a run around town. Chicago landmarks!

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot!

 

Daley Plaza (Blues Brothers, Ferris Bueller)

Chicago Board of Trade

(for Beth)

The Bean! Not in either movie, but I had to grab a picture when I went by

Anyway...the gig! The show was pretty good, in my estimation. Maybe we were a bit rusty because we hadn't played a show in a couple of weeks, and there was a technical problem when Greg's amp died in the middle of I Can't Go for That, but my in ears mix sounded good and I was genuinely excited to play a real gig in a real venue. I guess I just love Chicago. I don't think I played anything memorable, but I still had a good time. Hope we come back to twice as many people next time (940 in the room with us for this one).

Oh yeah, nothing memorable, except that I got the first chord of the first song wrong. That was stupid, but it got better after that.

photo by Kip Conner

Saturday: Movin' on! We played the Mallow Run Winery outside of Indianapolis for our Saturday gig. We did this same gig two years ago (you can read about it right here). The place was paaaaaaacked. Like, maybe a couple of thousand people? It's entirely possible.

The weather was great (high of maybe 80?), the audience was huge, and there was, of course, big love for those of us who graduated from Indiana U. No love for Monkeyboy, though, who was introduced as not from Indiana, loves the University of Kentucky, and is a huge Tom Brady fan!

Once again, nothing memorable was played, but I had an excellent time. My in ear mix was even better than the night before. This is the best week of gigs I've had in a while.

Goodnight Indiana--we'll be back in a few weeks!