Been looking forward to this gig for a bit. A country club? At Sand Point? Sure! Don't know much about either, but do know enough to know that the terms Sand Point Country Club mean lots of drinks, lots of well-heeled customers, and hopefully lots of pretty views.
That's pretty much what turned out last night!
I left the house around 3:45 for a 4:30 arrival time. Traffic was lame and it took about 5 minutes longer to get there. Fun fact: it's only about 2 miles from Robb's house (my other band's rehearsal home).
I turned off into a neighborhood with a guard post (is that what it's called? Really just a booth at the entrance; I didn't even stop) and followed Waze's directions. The neighborhood was really beautiful, with newer and beautiful homes up and down the streets. No mansions, but definitely upper-upper-upper middle class. Tasteful, just large enough and not cookie cutter, really gorgeous.
Of course, the country club was part of this neighborhood and it featured a beautiful golf course that had some sweet views of Lake Washington. I drove down the path to the club and found a parking spot. I met up with Dennis and got busy trying to figure out the lay of the land. That got us nowhere, but a few minutes later, the other mates showed up and we also met up with a point of contact that wasn't really our POC, but was able to fill in admirably.
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| We were at the end of the deck. |
It seemed like when we got to the "stage" area (in our case, an outdoor patio/deck area overlooking the golf course), no one knew we were supposed to be there. There were tables and club members milling about, with barely any room for a 5 piece band and sound guy. After some back and forth, we were able to get some direction and got situated. For future gigs like this, I think we need to have at least one bandmember do recon with the POC prior to a gig. We probably spent 30 minutes trying to figure out what to do, when a quick pre-visit could've gotten all that info ahead of time. That said, the young lady that was our actual POC seemed like she was more interested in not helping us and treating us like unwelcome visitors.
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| Finalizing the setup. |
Anyway, we did the load in and setup and did a quick soundcheck. For basses, I brought both L-1000s. I thought about playing one in each set. I could play the Hog in set 1 since there's no slapping (the Hog has a thumb rest that makes slapping not great), and then the Gold in set 2 with the 2 slapping tunes. Spoiler alert: the Hog stayed in its bag all night.
I did bring my Orange Terror Bass and Avatar 212 just in case, but when I got to the place, I realized it would be overkill, so in the trunk that gear stayed. I ended up using my B2 Four pedal and I'm glad I did. It made setup a breeze. I just plugged in, got my IEMs working, and I was ready.
After that, we got to our "green room," which was a conference-type room downstairs from the main part of the club. Pretty nice to get to hang out and eat there. Speaking of eating, they had a giant buffet that was just opening up. They said we could go get food, so I went in and took inventory. They had salad (3 types, I took a garden variety), poké bar (!), seafood boil (skipped that), beef tenderloin (so good), shrimp cocktail (took 2), and a variety of desserts (lemon bar please). I do wish I had taken more, but what I did take was delightful.
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| Grateful to be fed! |
From there, it was time to get changed. I went with the white pants and a vintage yachting-themed t-shirt I bought years ago, before I was ever in a yacht rock band. I was hoping to have suspenders to finish off the look, but went with what I hoped was a nautical looking belt instead.
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| The fit. |
The rest of the band looked appropriate, with Hawaiian style shirts and their white pants. Jen picked up a great little white dress that swished around when she twirled. I joked with her that she'd get a lot of tips because it was pretty low cut.
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| Jen, Dennis, Dusty. |
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| Jen, Dusty, me. |
We always start the set with some "mood setting" tunes. A little slower, since we want to bank the "hits" for when the people start dancing. That said, I always love playing "Steal Away" and "Baby Come Back." Those are fun and easy enough (though the high backing vocal in BCB is always challenging for me, range-wise) and get us warmed up. By the third song, "Listen to the Music," we got a few dancers.
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| B2 Four and setlist. |
As we continued, the sun was at our backs but there was a nice breeze. More people jumped in front and danced. One guy must have shouted for "Free Bird" at least 20 times. It was only funny because it wasn't funny any more. We also had these dudes come up and want us to do certain songs (I couldn't hear what) because they wanted to do a dance-off. We didn't meet their request, but on one song, people cleared out so these guys could dance by themselves. It was semi-entertaining.
Of course, we had several instances of requests that we didn't accommodate. One guy wanted us to play "Don't Stop Believin'," which we don't do, nor does it (IMO) qualify as yacht rock. Other guys tried to play Jen's bongos and/or shakers. They were pretty obnoxious. In a few tunes, Jen got distracted by said dudes and missed the third verse in "Maggie May," and later in the set, forgot to do the half time part in "Ride Like the Wind." I had a few mess ups as well. When you play 99% of the time to your band mates, when you get out in the wild, the crowd will surprise and distract you with their antics sometimes. Oh well!
By the end of the night, it was dark and folks were still dancing. We ended our set and of course got the "one more song" request, but as it was 11:00 in a neighborhood setting, we declined (plus, we were at the end of an almost 8 hour day by then). We packed it all up and about an hour later, were headed back to our homes. Overall, a really nice night, and once the money hits the bank, well worth the time.
Next up: 8/23 at the Seattle Aquarium!
