Birmingham/North Dakota/Louisville

Some more crazy traveling...my apologies for the fifty pictures of nothing in North Dakota.

Friday: Birmingham, Alabama at the Avondale Brewing Company. Pretty cool venue, though we were right on the cusp of it being too hot to play outside. If this spot had a side curtain to protect the gear from the afternoon sun, it would make a big difference. I wonder if I should put a tarp in a bag and leave it in the trailer for the rest of the summer.

I played ok on this one, though there were a few points where my mind started to wander off.

Here's the killer: after the gig, we loaded up the trailer and drove back to Atlanta, spending the night/taking a nap at an airport hotel. In bed around 3 AM and up around 6:30 AM. Time to fly.

Saturday: Look out North Dakota! A casino hired us for a Yacht Rock Revival style show, so the format was us plus Robbie Dupree, Matthew Wilder, Elliot Lurie, and Peter Beckett. Big travel day. We flew from Atlanta to Minneapolis, and then changed to a regional jet to fly from Minneapolis to Minot, North Dakota, and then took a ninety minute van ride to New Town, North Dakota, which is in the middle of nowhere.

Minot: oil rigs and a B-52 base.

We just beat a storm into town. Big sky and the open prairie made for some incredible views.

check out how straight this road is!

Our first indication that we were in for something unusual...tickets to the show were tied to a monster truck rally happening behind the casino.

The casino itself was underwhelming, but the arena/convention center that we were in was kind of cool! Nice big stage, and good backline gear.

After soundcheck, we had some time to kill, so I went for a run on a path along the main road.

this is apparently up to code in North Dakota

 So...the gig was not so great. Not much of an audience for the opener!

...and not much of an audience for us!

This one was a bummer. I liked the room, the stage, the gear, the songs, and the guests, but it kind of felt like a TV shoot or something where you have to pretend that you're getting energy from the nonexistent audience.

Sunday: All day travel day, though I woke up early enough to squeeze in another run, so I headed in the other direction from yesterday's run. 

The van ride back to Minot. More nothing. Our driver had told us to watch for houses with fences around them, because they were probably missile silos.

 

This plane took us from North Dakota to Minnesota

Got to Minnesota. Ate lunch, used the bathroom. The Minneapolis airport is exceptionally nice--I think I rate it even higher than Indianapolis'.

Another flight delay...

this thing will take us home

so long Minneapolis!

hello Atlanta!

 The flight was about an hour late getting us home. I was in my garage just before 11:30 PM.

Monday: Right back to the airport! This time we were headed to Louisville, KY for a gig in Bardstown.

hello Louisville

This particular gig was connected to a summer concert series an outdoor amphitheater which serves as home of The Stephen Foster Story.

Nice venue, especially once the sun moved low enough in the sky that my gear was no longer in direct sunlight.



We ended up with a rather small, reserved audience of maybe a hundred and fifty people (which was strange because ticket sales were more than three hundred). They were cool, but we didn't get a ton of energy from them.

nice picture by Zach Wetzel

After the show, an older man from the audience waited til I came out of the dressing room and offered to buy my hat. I still can't figure out why he wanted it, but I gave it to him.

Tuesday: Flew home with these beauties from last night's green room.

 Upon landing in Atlanta, we learned that someone had broken into our trailer while it was parked at the hotel in Louisville. They got in through the side door of the trailer, and evidently only grabbed a few easy things before leaving--Pete's acoustic guitar, Mark Cobb's drum pad, the box with our in ear monitors, and my rack. Fortunately, we're insured, but my wireless microphones, MIDI to USB switcher, and keyboard mixer are gone, so we're dealing with that, plus the repair to the trailer. Looks like we lost this round of the game of gig.

DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Trio Reunion

I don't get called for trio gigs like I used to, so Sunday night's gig was a bit of a reunion--our previous gig was in early November 2016.

We were hired as background dinner music--musical wallpaper--but we happened to be playing for a very appreciative, all Japanese audience who listened attentively and clapped after every song! Not bad a gig, but maaaaaaaaaan...I'm out of improvisationally out of shape!

Florida

Headed to Florida for some Yacht Rock gigs. What could go wrong?

Wednesday: Our carpool uses the Park and Ride at Atlanta's airport, and sometimes we are unlucky to  have this woman as our shuttle driver. We have nicknamed her Tips because she spends entire five or six minute drive to the airport ceaselessly dishing out all sorts of crap about apps that could save our lives (or help find our cars) and the children who might die if we don't. I used to suffer in silence, but now I can't help but actively ignore her. I wish I had a jew's harp or something to play on the ride. Join the resistance!

Our flight to Ft. Meyers was massively delayed. Bad weather in Florida. Two hours late! I ate some horrible "veggies and rice" concoction at a Chinese restaurant.

The gig was a corporate event, heavy on the 80s stuff (the company was founded in 1987). The Great  Bencuya was a freshman in college (you were too, Beth Freeman). I was in eighth grade...in Florida! Damnit! Anyway, not too bad for a private gig on a Wednesday night, and the vegetarian meal was pretty good.

Thursday: We were supposed to have a public show in this same local (Bonita Springs, FL), but the venue and the promoter evidently are fighting, and neither would promote the show. Thus, we sold zero tickets for this performance. The show was cancelled, and we had the day and night off.

Friday: Back in the van, we boogied up to St. Petersburg for a public show at Jannus Live, an outdoor stage that basically faced into an alley in the middle of a city block. Our first really hot outdoor adventure of the year. It was so hot that my saxophones were crazy sharp--both mouthpieces pulled out more than a quarter inch for soundcheck (where a sixteenth in or out is common for most rooms).

We had an opening band for this show, and they opened their set with a wedding ceremony! The bass player married her boyfriend, and then she removed the lower half of her dress (revealing snazzy white pants underneath), and played their gig. Something new I have never seen. They were pretty good.

Our gig was also pretty good! We added a new song for this run--Kenny Loggins' Heart to Heart. In case you missed it in 1982, here's what it sounds like.

Here's the solo. I'm great on this at soundcheck, but I get tripped up on the gig.

We had a good turnout for the show--plenty of new fans sprinkled in among the wedding reception partiers. 

Also, I should mention that the temperature had cooled significantly by our start time, and when I retuned my saxophones, they were much closer to the normal mouthpiece positions.

photo cred: Kip Conner!

A setlist:

This was parked outside of our hotel. Totally a "retired in Florida" thing. Good god.

Saturday: Killed some time in St. Pete until the skies turned angry, and then hopped on I-4 and headed to Orlando.

This evening's show...the House of Blues! I'm a little disappointed that our show was at Disney, which to me (as someone who lived in central Florida for all of middle school and high school), is a bit far away from the city limits--I mean, it's more than 20 minutes from downtown...but...I like playing the Houses (?) of Blues. I take it back. The stages are big, the room sounds good, the crew moves our gear, the green room is spacious. No complaints!

I really don't know anybody in Orlando anymore, and I've been gone twenty-five years, so I didn't invite anyone to the show. When I graduated high school and moved away, I very deliberately shook the sand from my shoes and never looked back. HOWEVER!...I was freaking out for the first five or six songs of the gig just thinking about the possibilities of who could be in the audience...who might be following my career from afar and showed up, or who might be here and not even realize that we used to be friends or classmates. My head was spinning until I finally settled into the gig.

photo cred: Kip!

photo cred: Kip Conner!

photo cred: Mr. Kippen Conner

I took this one.

photo cred: Greg Lee

Wow! We had about nine hundred people in the room with us for our second public show in central Florida. Orlando showed up in force! It was a great end to our trip.


This week! Birmingham, Alabama Friday night and New Town, North Dakota Saturday night. See you at the airport.