Since the location was about 90 miles away, AND they wanted us to play starting around 1:30pm, that meant early wake up for me at 6:30. After morning rituals, I drove to Jen's in Ballard, usually a 30-35 minute drive, but for some reason, traffic was lousy, and it took closer to 45 minutes.
Good news was, they were all loaded up. Bad news was because of me, we got on the road about 30 minutes after we wanted to. Dennis drove Eric and I and, after a quick stop at Starbucks, we were off.
I didn't take the day off work, but did bring my work laptop and took 2 60 minute calls both on my way to Jen's and in Dennis' back seat. Aggravatingly, though I "needed" to be on both calls, it turns out that I didn't need to be on either call. No worries, still good to show my face.
There was an accident on the way up, which added more time to our delay. Dennis narrowly avoided some accidents on his own as well, a few times coming up rapidly behind traffic that he wasn't expecting to be at a standstill. Hairy moments, but after our fairly uneventful drive otherwise, we made it to Lake Whatcom.
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| The summer house on Lake Whatcom |
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| The backdrop to our stage |
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| The backside of the summer house |
We parked and got our stuff down to the beach. As with many beaches, the ground is not level, but a slope down to the water. This location was no different. Thankfully it was sunny and fairly dry; it did rain the day before and walking around the side of the house was a little damp and slick in spots, but not where we performed. We got the gear down there and commenced setup.
I brought both L-1000s and my Zoom pedal and a change of clothes. On the way up, Dennis realized he forgot his performance wear and once we got set up, he realized he also forgot his in-ear monitors! He left around 11:30 to the nearby Guitar Center (20 minutes or so away) and disappeared. We finished setting up and partook in the catered food, some BBQ brisket and smoked chicken, Caesar's salad, cornbread and some sparkling waters. It was great!
The party guests showed up while we were setting up and they were a crew that seemed pretty, well, biotech-y. They were nice enough and I was surprised that many of them had brought bathing suits to take advantage of the lake, where the party host had put out kayaks, paddle boards, as well as giving rides on jet skis. I can't imagine partying with my coworkers and opting to put on a bathing suit in front of them all. Anyway, moving on...
After eating, Dennis came back and had on a spiffy pink short-sleeved button-down shirt. Looked fantastic, with tropical theme to boot. And some new white pants. Apparently, he stopped by an adjacent TJ Maxx and plucked those items off the rack. It was perfect! He took a few minutes to get situated and before long, we kicked it off.
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| Dusty got a new, matte-finished kit |
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| The staging area; I was off to the left, stage right |
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| The basses |
Prior to the gig, I took our setlist and programmed in patches on my Zoom B2 Four. I tried to come up with tones similar to the artist's original sounds. I didn't really edit anything; I ended up going through Zoom's default patches and comparing and listening to what I liked the best. Though I don't know if anyone out front noticed, I could definitely tell in my IEMs and I enjoyed the variety and interaction it required to make sure I had the right patches dialed up.
The actual terrain was challenging as well, since, as mentioned earlier, it was not level. I was having to lean towards the front of the "stage" all afternoon as I was downhill from my mic stand. We didn't really have a crowd either. The people that were there were eating, playing cornhole, going in the lake or the hot tub, or standing by the drinks. No one was dancing or really even seeming to pay attention to us, but we sort of expected that going in; it was a Thursday afternoon, after all!
Performance-wise, I was happy with how things went for the most part. "Brandy" has been challenging for me lately, don't know why. I know the parts, both on bass and vocally, but I've been goofing it up, like I have the yips or something. I made sure to run it a few times this week and as I played it yesterday, definitely was mindful at not messing up where I normally was messing up. I think I had one flub, but otherwise felt pretty good about it.
We came up to a break, grabbed some ice cream sandwiches from an ice cream truck that the host had brought in, and then jumped back on stage. When we started the first set, it was sunny and warm and thankfully we had the canopy as it did get pretty hot in the sun. During the second set, however, though it was still sunny and beautiful, the wind picked up and it got quite a bit cooler.
The set was looser as well since we knew that no one really cared about what we were doing. I was walking around with my long 25' foot cable, just listening to the FOH and stretching my legs, then racing back to my mic to sing backing vocals. It was just fun, outside practice at this point.
We finally finished up and though no one was overly enthusiastic when we played, lots of people offered good feedback. I think the crowd was just less about the live music and more about the activities and socializing. No worries, though, we got paid either way.
After packing up, we took the sound guy (kid from Western) back to his house 20 minutes north, and then headed back to Seattle. I got back just in time to get my car from Jen's and head over to Robb's for a quick PITO practice before heading home for the night.
Here's a couple more pix of yesterday:
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| Yes, they had a private dock |
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| Unclear as to why the open mouths |
