Last night was our gig for Loyal Heights Elementary School, an auction for them, held at the Ballard Elks Club. We were booked for a two-hour set, starting at 9pm. Trouble was, we had load in at 3pm as the prefunction started at 5pm. Which meant I had to leave around 2:30. :/
I got to the venue around 3:15, with two basses, amp, cab, pedals and change of clothes. I got loaded in and though there was a stage, it was clear that only Dusty and Eric would be up there. It was pretty small and enclosed in brick.
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| Dusty on stage |
This was a show that we had to bring not only our own individual gear, but also the PA and lights. Sort of a pain, but it is what it is. We got all set up and I ran my amp DI to the mixer, but for some reason, despite getting bass to the mains, I got none in my IEMS. I could hear everything else, but no bass. Finally, we plugged the XLR into my Tone Hammer DI and then I could hear it. Weird, but we didn't have time to troubleshoot. I ended up not using my amp and cab on stage as a result.
I used the gold L1K as I'm still figuring out the HOG. Though it is shaping up to be a great addition, I think it might be *too* aggressive sounding for smooth grooves. I'll try again next week at practice.
Speaking of the suit, I found it for $9.99 at Goodwill a few weeks ago. I picked it up, then thought it would be too cheesy for the band. But I asked them about it and they were like, "GET IT." I went back for it and some high school kids had picked it up. The suit was a size M and the boys were likely a size L in the big and tall section. A few minutes later, they had put it down and I grabbed it. I put it on at home and though the pants were a little long, it was pretty much a perfect fit. Some quick research showed a brand called Opposuits as the maker and a retail price of $99.99. Only thing missing was a matching tie, but IMO, that made it too much of the same fabric.
Overall, I think we played really well. Tempos were good, parts sounded pretty good, as far as I could tell. And the crowd loved it. It was a yacht rock/sailing themed night, and the people came dressed for it. And, oddly, there was a couple dressed as Hall and Oates as well. Not really sailing themed, but definitely fit our vibe.
On the last song of the first set, Escape (the Piña Colada song), a woman in front of me (the one right above the bongos in the above picture) started looking at me. At first I thought it was a "rock on" or "awesome" type of look. But her mouth was moving. I couldn't hear her as we literally were in the middle of playing the song, but she ended up coming up to me and asking me if I was Chinese or Taiwanese. I can honestly say that that was the first time anything like that had ever happened to me on stage. What made it even funnier was that she kept asking me questions as we were playing. And then after the song during our break, she kept talking to me.
With that brick enclosure around the stage, the drums reflected quite loudly off the stage, which went directly into our vocal mics in front. This led to some feedback issues, but not too bad. Dennis was on the mixer and did a great job making sure we sounded good. The main issue for me, which he couldn't really help, was hearing the drums back in my vocal mix (I had the drums turned off in my mix). But it was OK and I could hear myself fine.
After setup, it was about 5:30, so we needed to make ourselves scarce for a few hours. Dusty, Jen and I went to dinner at a fried chicken place down the street. Cookie's, I think it was called. Pretty tasty, so hot, straight from the deep fryer. Don't get the mashed potatoes and gravy, maybe get the fries next time.
With dinner done, we had another 90 minutes or so to kill, so off to Jen's we went. Dusty had bought a Yacht Rock board game so we attempted to play that. It was more entertaining trying to figure out how to play it than it was actually playing it. But it killed an hour or so. We ended up getting dressed, posting on Instagram, and then back to the Elks club.
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| Epic |
Once we got back to the Elks, I got a quick compliment on the suit and we sort of hung out until it was time to play. Everyone was still in the auction portion of the night and they sounded like they were having a great time. If they started drinking at 5 and we were closing in on 9, not only were they lubed up, but likely ready to throw down. The auction ran a little long and we started closer to 9:30. I had posted the picture of me in the suit above to Instagram and my friend Jeff saw it, said he wanted to draw the suit, so half-seriously invited him. He messaged back and said he was on his way. By the time we started, he showed up and started drawing. Here's one of his pictures.
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| @drawitinone on Instagram |
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| Eric on keys got a shot from his vantage point |
At this point, it was pretty clear she was quite buzzed, and in talking to her, I learned that we had attended the same high school (7 years apart); that she was of mixed Chinese/Caucasian heritage; that she had a sister who is a professor at Haley's college; that we grew up in nearly the same neighborhood. Anyway, that was quite entertaining and kept me from having a bio break during our break.
We started the second set and just like the first, people were into it. We did have some technical difficulties with battery issues on Jen's wireless mic, but Dennis was on it and got it sussed out eventually. And, due to the late start, we got the 20 minute warning about halfway through the set, which meant cutting about 6 songs. That was kind of a bummer, but at this point, not much we could do. We got to our last song, Don't Bring Me Down, and a woman jumped on my mic and said we had to stop, which was sort of lame, as we were nearly done with the tune, but we brazenly finished up (about 90 seconds later), and that was that.
All that was left was teardown, the lamest part of the night. We got everything loaded and headed out. I got home about 1pm, ate a couple cookies, and headed to bed. Here's some more pictures.
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| View when we showed up |
