Before I Forget

 I'd better update this sucker before I forget everything. 

After a weekend of no gigs, we got back into it in Milwaukee at the beautiful Pabst Theatre. Looks good, sounds good, and the definitely an upgrade over our previous trip here (where we played on a raked stage (tilted down towards the audience). 

The audience was small; we definitely didn't have anybody in either balcony, but the few hundred people in the floor level were very appreciative that we made the trip this far north. 

Late in the show, I went up front for the solo in Maneater, and when I returned to my usual position, I noticed that the F key felt weird--I'd lost the pearl! NOOOOOOOOO!!!! Luckily, it fell off right in front of me, so I scooped it up to be reattached later on.

The following day, we headed down to Chicago to play at the hallowed ground of the Pavilion at Ravinia. In the hundred years of its existence, this stage has hosted (in addition to annual summer series by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra) Barry Manilow, Duke Ellington, Aretha Franklin, James Taylor, Yo-Yo Ma, Sharon Jones, Dolly Parton, Sheryl Crow, Tony Bennett, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra with the Atlanta Symphony Chorus featuring the talented vocals of a first alto named Beth Freeman, and some other people. You get the gist of it. Big show!

What you can't see from the stage was the lawn outside, which was completely covered with people picnicking and listening to the music. I think the lawn spots may have sold out--it was that full. Inside, it was significantly thinner. Still, it was a pretty epic night. My love of Chicago remains strong.

Also, I was thinking when we arrived that the area totally looked like the neighborhood from Risky Business, and I was right--we were a mile and a half away from Joel's house! I wish I'd looked up the address--my run that afternoon took me one street over from his.

Oh yeah...after the gig, we mapped ourselves to the wrong hotel, and Nick just about lost his mind on the lady at the front desk before we realized that our reservations were somewhere else, and that was the reason there were no beds where we were. Oops! Get back in van! 

The next weekend, we began the slate of gigs at the massive Pavilion in Boston. It is an enormous, intimidating place.

I was a bit concerned about weather for this show, as the forecast put the temperature in the sixties with rain and wind. With the venue being right on the water, I thought I might end up with cold, stiff hands and shitty playing, kind of a replay of our gig in Cape Cod a few weeks previous. Fortunately, that was not the case. I wore a suit jacket to begin the evening, but I was warm enough to eventually take it off.

The following morning, we headed to the airport for a fly date to Cleveland, Ohio. But first, a flat tire!

We landed in Cleveland in the late morning with several hours to kill before heading to our gig. As usual, I went for a run (it was terrible! I was exhausted! it was hot and windy!), and then refueled with pasta.

The sprinter van that was supposed to pick us up from the hotel and deliver us to the gig turned out to be a party bus with no room for gear or luggage or our knees. It was funny for a minute, but we made them send us a more conventional van/bus thing with seats.

Our gig for the evening was a party in Canton, Ohio, for newly selected NFL Hall of Famer, Steve Hutchinson. Pretty cool! We had good backline gear, and I felt extra stupid that I took my wireless microphone receiver out of my fly gear and thus had to use a regular old microphone on a stand. 

I saw Peyton Manning, Charles Woodson, and Matt Hasselbeck. There were many other guys there who were obviously pro football players--enormous dudes amongst the normal sized humans. Hutch came back in our dressing room before the gig, and he couldn't have been a cooler guy. And he could also probably break your neck.

Also in attendance was Guy Fieri, who lit up a cigar early in the gig and proceeded to send a continuous cloud of cigar smoke our way for pretty much the whole two hours we were on stage! 

The gig ended late (12:30 AM), and we had to travel (via another sprinter van) back to Cleveland. A few hours later, we were back at the airport, this time headed to New Jersey to return to our gear and regular gigging.

The Stone Pony in Asbury Park, New Jersey, is a legendary venue mostly because its connection to Bruce Springsteen during his formative years. Playing the Summer Stage (outside, basically a giant festival stage in a parking lot one block over from the beach), is pretty amazing.

Limp Bizkit did not end up playing their show the night before us. They showed up with a sick band member (with COVID),  set up and soundchecked, and then decided that they couldn't do it, so they bailed. Soon thereafter they canceled the rest of the tour.

lunch!

Extra cool. There were about a billion people there; the weather was great; the atmosphere was great. We were rock stars. 

My only blemish was the middle of the Africa solo. I'm trying not to let two measures out of twenty-five songs ruin my night, but COME ON! I'm again having some major mental hiccups with this. 

Everybody slept like the dead after these two days of gigs and travel.

Onward we traveled! The next day, we made our way back to the Bottle and Cork in Dewey Beach, Delaware (weren't we just here a week ago?). Somewhere along the way, we ate lunch at a strip mall, and they had an Indian restaurant! Score!

Bottle and Cork...and Bencuya.

The venue repaired some blown out speakers in the PA, and this place sounded waaaaaaay better than last month! It was loud, but in a good way. I liked it. The energy of the crowd makes for a fun hit, even though it's a shitty dive bar kind of place.

Maybe the best version we've ever played of I Keep Forgetting--because it was louder and more aggressive than we usually do it.

We slept late again, and I had some sort of veggie burrito for lunch in my hotel room as the rain swept through.

The last show of this run was at the Freeman Arts Pavilion--a socially distanced event somewhere in Delaware. We tried to do this gig a month ago, but it got rained out. This time, the rain cleared off, and we were able to get it in.

This show was just ok; there wasn't a whole lot of energy from the crowd, and I crashed and burned on the goddamn Africa solo again. No matter how many times I play it perfectly before the gig (and during the gig, with the volume turned off), my psyche is kicking me in the fucking nuts. 

Tuesday morning, it was over. We drove a couple of hours to Washington, DC, hopped on a plane at Reagan National, and flew home.

The Touring Returns

And just like that, Yacht Rock started touring again like nothing had ever happened.

The first weekend in July found us in the Northeast, beginning with a pair of gigs in Delaware. The van and trailer met us at the airport in Baltimore, but before we could even grab our luggage, the first show had been canceled due to bad weather. 

 

We spent the night in a hotel full of little league baseball players and their families, all of whom seemed to be hanging out in the lobby all the time. I slept a lot and ate two pizzas.

Our second night in Delaware was at the Bottle and Cork. Lots of vibe, lots of people, lots of noise. 

It was sold out, and the crowd was boisterous. It was apparently more than that poor old PA could handle, even though Kip had it pushed to the limit. That being said, I had a good show--everything felt nice and loose.

We added the Isley Brothers version of Summer Breeze and Love The One You're With, and the I cannot ever sing the right words in the chorus--I think it's one of those songs that everybody hears differently. The line "There's a rose in a fisted glove"--I grew up thinking it was "There's a road in a distant flood," which makes no sense with the rest of the chorus, but whatever. I will continue to sing something in between the two until my brain finally gets it right.

At one point, Greg got distracted and couldn't remember the last verse of Southern Cross, and the band vamped on Wipeout while I pulled up the lyrics on my phone, at which point we successfully segued back into Southern Cross. Hopefully it was recorded somewhere for posterity.

Following the show, we drove an hour and a half to Philadelphia. The next morning, we flew to Boston and then took a private van down to the end of Cape Cod. Kip and Hans drove the van up to meet us.

The food we ordered did not make it before the gig, but someone at the venue made us a salad and risotto, and maybe something else.

By the time the gear arrived, the wind and the rain had found us, and the temperature had dropped to around sixty degrees. The gig was under a giant tent, but it was not fully enclosed, and things got cold pretty quickly, even with a rabid audience right up against the stage.

This was an awful gig for me. First of all, my sax mic problem (where there would randomly be no sound) came back, and there was no time to try and do anything to fix it, so I once again spent way too much brain power trying to diagnose it while I was playing. Along with that frustration, my hands got cold and sticky because of the cold and damp, and I messed up the middle two measures of the goddamn Africa solo. I was cold, I was tired, my shit didn't work, the tent sounded bad...AGGGGGHHHH! 

After the show, we had pizza and then drove the two hours back to Boston before we sleeping. The next morning, we went home.

Hans and the gear headed west! On the second weekend of July, we reconvened in Denver and rode out to Boulder to play a birthday party in a very small room in the back of a restaurant. In spite of its size, this place sounded pretty damn good. I got the Africa solo right again, and on a wild guess, I swapped the cable that connects my saxophone to the PA--and I had no sax problems. Hmm. Anyway, things sounded good, I played great, and it felt like I'd redeemed myself.

For dinner, I had a salad, six bananas, a few handfuls of tortilla chips, and a warm chocolate cooke (the cookies were fresh and amazing). I had a bean burrito from Qdoba on the plane. Good times.

We drove to Aspen the next day for a gig at the Belly Up. Spectacular views along the way!

This is a weird place. The room is small (but a sell out is still a sell out!), and the people who come out are there because it's the thing to do, not because they necessarily want to see any particular band.  But whatever--no sax mic problems for two nights in a row, the altitude was difficult but not impossible, and the room sounded pretty good. And I got the Africa solo right.

Yeah, the altitude. My saxophones felt horrible! So dead, so tubby, so resistant. I guess if you're a sax player and you grow up in Colorado, you make equipment choices that help with all this. Bleah.

I passed up pizza for vegetable curry from a Thai place, which was really good, but a long walk away. There I was, racing back to the gig twenty-five minutes before start time with three cups of coconut milk in my stomach.

Onward we travel. Gig number three in Colorado was in Steamboat Springs, so we had quite a bit of riding in the van to get get there (around four hours).

Nearby wildfires made for a hazy sunset, but what a view! Also, the temperature at gig time was right about seventy degrees. It felt great. Even my saxophones felt better.

For social distancing, the audience was divided up onto little drum risers, which worked for most of the show. Towards the end, people gave up and a small gathering formed in front of the stage.

I skipped dinner (we had a late lunch of pizza somewhere along the way). No problems with the sax mic or Africa. I think I'm cured. Easy gig.

Monday morning, we got up super damn early and drove around four hours from Steamboat to the Denver airport, and flew home from there.

Did you know there's a gas shortage in Colorado? Hans does. He says they need truck drivers. This pump wasn't putting out whatever was left in the tank.

We next saw Hans at the Houston airport, where he picked us up to begin the weekend of gigs in Texas.

Up against Emo Night! Our crowd showed up, though--the emos were not as plentiful. So sad.

Not the greatest sounding room, but kind of on par with the rest of Houston. I missed dinner because I got a little lost while I was out for my pre gig run (also, running on a Friday afternoon in downtown Houston in mid July is TOUGH/STUPID!), so I made it through on the Qdoba burrito from the Atlanta airport, three bananas, and chips and salsa. There were probably a few handfuls of trail mix in there, too.

Pretty solid gig, and I was kind of relieved to have my saxophones feel like my horns again.

The next day's run was equally brutal. Lunch really hit the spot, though.

Across the plains of Texas we traveled, finally parking at Emo's in Austin. 

We had a good crowd, and it felt like they were listening. This place is pretty cool (the dressing room impossibly small, though), and they ordered food from a Thai place for us (I had vegetable curry again). 

We flew home the next morning, and I foolishly chose the early flight, which wrecked me for the rest of the day. Stoooopid. Getting up early to get home just isn't worth it.

Since the gigging has picked up significantly, I haven't made as many videos for social media. Here's the one I made for the Fourth of July.