One Million Pictures from Hawaii

...but first...some other random gigs!

First up was our trip to Charleston (Isle of Palms, to be exact). We played the infamous Windjammer, a dive bar right on the beach that attracts some pretty big names. If you've ever seen us at the Park Tavern in Atlanta, this had a similar, but sandier, feel.

They did have dogs in the bar, though. All total, there were three chocolate labs, and they were all very sweet.

I had wireless microphone troubles again on this gig (for whatever reason), and it squashed my whole mood about this one. It was probably an ok gig, but I was preoccupied with the equipment gremlin. 

Here's a random hotel room--the window was on the side wall, just past the desk. Not something you see every day.

The next day, we played a wedding behind a beach club. When we showed up for load in, the tent company was only this far into setting up. Evidently, whoever packed the truck forgot one critical piece that held the whole tent together, and so the entire operation ground to a halt until it was delivered. 

Soooo...knowing that we would probably be faced with a frantic load in/soundcheck situation, the van headed back towards the hotel so that we could eat. This was some pad Thai with rice noodles. It didn't taste like much of anything, even by strip shopping center standards.

Here's our green room. No walls = excellent ventilation! Kudos for the non-styrofoam coolers, though.

And look! A tent! A stage! It all came together in time. How about that!

This gig was much better than the previous night. Did this tent sound better than the previous night's tent? No idea, but my wireless microphones did some sort of electronic belch at soundcheck and then began working fine, and so did I. Also, this crowd was outstanding in terms of looks and enthusiasm.

Oh yeah, and we let Peaches (James, our lighting guy) set up his lights and do his thing. Pretty epic for a wedding reception.

The following week, we played a fundraiser at the Atlanta Zoo. Fine for a Thursday. Whatever. Better than the 10 High. The hardest part of this one was the downtown traffic and the rain.

Here we go: the Hawaii portion of the blog. Actual number of pictures from this trip: sixty-three.

Sunday morning began the long day of travel. People who envy your trip to Hawaii probably don't consider the entire day spent on an airplane. It's definitely the equalizer in this equation.

Both sides of this trip had layovers in Los Angeles. Our flight out of Atlanta made it as far as taxiing to the runway (so I am told--already asleep at that point) before a broken fuel pump (a critical component, I would say!) sent us back to the terminal. After a maintenance check, it was determined that our jet would not be flying, so everybody had to get off and get rebooked on other flights. Some of us went to Seattle, and some of us went on a later flight to LAX.

Unfortunately, the later flight meant that we missed our connection to Kauai. Delta rebooked us onto an American Airlines flight (I did not know this was a possibility).

Pizza at LAX. Not bad at all.

And then we had to go through one thousand frantic steps on the Hawaii government website to prove that we did not have COVID and didn't feel sick. Major pain in the ass--I had to repeat the entire process three times before it finally worked. The big hiccup was that we had done all of the preliminary stuff based on a different flight to Hawaii, so each of us had to create a new trip--like filling out an online customs form with all the "what flight are you on," "where are you staying," "what is the purpose of your visit" kind of information.

I was so frustrated that I almost ate my phone.

We got on the plane at the last minute, but it wasn't even half full. 

Six hours later, we landed in Kauai, and our luggage made it, too!

Made it! Here's my room.

Here's the view from my room. Aloha!

First exploration of the resort (the Grand Hyatt in Kauai).

not a dog, but pretty cool

also not a dog

My run/hike took me up the coast on sort-of-a-trail. Here are a third of the pictures I took!

After lunch, I did my best to lie around and do nothing. It's not my thing, but I tried hard.

This seal is good at it.

Dinner was...I don't remember what this was. It's roasted peppers and rice noodles and tofu and tasteless. I ate a bunch of bread with it.

Tuesday morning's breakfast of champions. A large coffee and three bananas was $12.52, by the way. $2 per banana. 

Speaking of coffee and fruit, our rooms had bidets. It's an interesting experience.

Day two run went in the opposite direction. Not as much to see, as it was mostly just a sidewalk along the main road.

Is a dog.

Lunch time! Here's what I ate every day for lunch. It's a veggie burger, fries, and a side salad.

Tuesday night, we played our show--a corporate thing for a tech company. Great gear, considering that we were on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean! 

When I am in Hawaii, I eat all the pineapple. That's the law. I don't know what the red powder was, but it wasn't enough of a deterrent to slow me down.

On our final day here, I ran more or less up the coast again, but more on the road/sidewalk, which eventually gave way to a dirt road.

We hung around most of the afternoon, even though we'd lost our hotel rooms.

Waterslide. Did it ten times. 

And then it was time to go home. The shuttle dropped us off at the airport, but I guess Delta didn't know we were coming? It's odd(really irritating) that there was no one working the counter at 5:30 in the afternoon. 

Also irritating was the limited food options at the airport. I couldn't find any meat-free options, so here's my dinner (plus water from the water fountain).

It looks like a regular jet, but the inside was like a refrigerator. Nooooooo! It was so cold, I couldn't sleep.

We landed at LAX at 5 AM, and per usual these days, we had to go out on the tarmac and get on a bus to another terminal. 

LAX at 5 AM. No people and no food options, and a very grumpy Dave. The coffee shops opened at 6 AM, but the line was immediately (and consistently) twenty-five people long, so I walked up and down the terminal for an hour and hated everybody and everything. 

I sat in a middle seat next to a big, stinky guy...and Monkeyboy. My neck was stiff from sleeping. It sucked real bad.

The following weekend, we played a wedding in Atlanta. Yay for local gigs! This tent did little to keep us warm, however. The outdoor gigging season has ended, or should be ending--my hands do not like the cold.

Not too bad of a night, though! 

Speaking of outdoor gigs...we're back at Chastain Amphitheatre in Atlanta for a fall/Halloween show. Hopefully there will be enough lamps on stage to keep us warm.

Three More

Three different, unusual gigs for the Yacht Rock Revue over the past few weeks. 

#1. Thursday, September 16: Total Request Livestream from Venkman's. This was loose and kind of fun--sort of 10 High-ish, but none of us was drunk. All the requests had been submitted via social media earlier in the week, so there were no true surprises, but I did have to drag a few out from the basement of my brain.

It was funny to me that we had comments on a few songs like Silly Love Songs and Reminiscing that we played to death ten years ago--"Y'all should add those to the setlist!"

#2. Saturday, September 18: Birthday Party at the Buckhead Theatre. This one was a low key, almost background music sort of thing. People were very reserved (or very old), and so the sound was, dare I say, studio quality.

There were some good moments on this one, and I took a few good solos. We also had a bass playing Republican governor/TV personality in attendance who asked to sit in, and we said no thank you.

#3. Mission Ballroom in Denver, Colorado. We flew out the afternoon before (it's difficult to fly west on the day of show and then stay up to play the show in a different time zone).

I woke up on the flight out to find that my radicalized, fire breathing, super patriot seat mate was watching the Benghazi movie (13 Hours) on his iPad at the same time he was watching Full Metal Jacket on the in-flight entertainment, so I turned on MSNBC and went back to sleep.

Denver is beautiful. I went for a run and the weather was perfect.

Then, I walked over to an excellent Indian restaurant, called Mint,near our hotel. The waiter recognized me from two years ago ("You sat over there last time, right?"). You, sir, have just increased your tip!

I had vegetable biryani and a side of roti. 

 

And then I went back to my room, took, a shower, and went to bed. There was nothing else to do.

I slept for as long as I could, but it was still only 8:30, so I put on my shoes and went out for another run. 

After coffee and a shower, it was time for more Indian food! This time was aloo mutter and a side of roti. Outstanding!

Back to the hotel I went, but there wasn't really anything to do, so I took a Lyft over to the gig so that I could practice a little bit before soundcheck. I figured that was nicer than playing for an hour and a half in my hotel room.

The usual set up and soundcheck.

This is Saki...or is it Psaki? I don't know, but I'm a sucker for dogs at our gigs (maybe not the dog in Birmingham that pooped in the middle of the floor, though). 

More pre-gig noodling:  I was playing saxophone in a room backstage, and all of the sudden there was a metallic clang, kind of like kicking a fork on a concrete floor. It turns out that one of my resonators had broken free inside my horn. It's nothing major, but a weird, random occurrence nonetheless.

We were supposed to hit the stage at 8 PM, but it ended up being delayed forty-five minutes because it took so long to check everybody's COVID vaccination/test results. I guess these are the times in which we're living. Anyway, I felt really out of it for the first hour. I'm not sure why, but I just couldn't get my head in the game. 

Lot of people here.

And then it was over. Saturday morning, we went back to the airport and flew home.

I ended up leaving my little pouch of cables and headphones in the seat pocket on the plane home, and didn't realize it until I walked up to baggage claim in Atlanta. A Delta person tried to call the gate, but no one answered, so she made me a special "ticket" to get me through security (which was weird, because I never ended up showing it to anybody). I went through regular security (take your shoes off, the whole thing), rode the train out to Concourse E, walked to the end to the gate, and there was a plane, but no gate agent. No gate agent across the way, either, so I walked down the concourse until I found a two agents handling a flight to Jamaica. I explained my situation, and the guy (with a perfect Jamaican accent!), said "No mon. I don't know who told you that, but you need to walk down to Delta customer service, and they will help you." I walked all the way back to the center of Concourse E to the Delta customer service, and the first agent I spoke to didn't want to help. Se called the gate (of course nobody answered), and then kept trying to brush me off with stuff like "They throw stuff like that away when they clean the plane." The lady next to her was more optimistic, and she finally said, "I can walk him down there." She did, walked straight onto the plane, and returned three minutes later with my stuff. How about that! 

Here's my flute solo on Lowdown from the Denver show. Fueled by the food of India!