By way of Stereo Embers and Planets in the Ocean, I got friendly with Trey B., who owns Sleight of Hand Winery. He has two locations, one in Walla Walla and one in SODO. Those other bands had played there, but Sunset Grooves never had. My friend's Fleetwood Mac tribute band, Wild Rumours, had as well, and I figured if a night of FM songs could play well at SOH, so could a night of yacht rock songs. I reached out to Trey earlier in the year, like March or so, and he said, yeah, let's book something... in October!
So the good part was we had a gig with the winery on the books; the bad part was waiting 6+ months for it to happen.
Finally, yesterday was gig day. I spent the day watching the Huskies barely hang on against the Ducks, so that was great. Left the house at 5:30 for a 6pm load-in. Traffic was fine despite competing with a GnR show at the Climate Pledge Arena.
Cool thing about SOH (despite being closer to me than most of our other venues) is that they have secured, covered parking. As musicians, we get to park inside and have flat and close load-in for all our gear. As with many of our shows, we had to bring in the PA, mics and lighting. Poor Dusty and Jen do most of the schlepping around as the gear is kept at Jen's house. I was able to help load in, and then the setup began.
Eric and Dennis showed up a little later, as did our sound guy, Aeden, who also ran sound for us at our Lake Whatcom gig a few weeks ago. He's a nice kid; super helpful and friendly and remembered certain things about my individual setup that I had forgotten about.
After getting set up, Dennis, Eric and I hoofed around the corner to find something to eat. The pizza place only did slices during the day, so we were out of luck, so I headed to the San Juan Seltzery and got a burger and fries (side note, the guy also delivers to SOH. Cool!).
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| Our stage. |
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| Daniel, the venue manager, attaching our recorder to the lighting rig. |
Back at SOH, we did some sound checking and ran through part of a song to get dialed in. Crowd-wise, I was told they sold 130 tickets to their wine club members, and though we definitely did not have that type of turnout, the 40-50 or so people that did end up coming throughout the night were energetic and appreciative.
A little while later, burgers were delivered, devoured and set aside. It was time to get dressed for the show. I busted out my thrift store special, a suit covered with flamingos, and got ready to throw down.
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| Found this suit at Goodwill for $10! |
I started the night on the 84 L-1000 with the thumb rest. As mentioned before, there are some songs I slap on and since I am no slapping whiz on the bass, I try to make it as advantageous to myself as I can. Using this bass and having "Somebody's Baby" on the set means minimal slapping. On the other slapping song we play, "Peg," which has a bunch of slapping, I switch to the Gold L-1000, which works out just fine.
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| The basses. |
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| The setlist. |
Looking back at the set, I felt pretty good and, ironically, on likely one of our easier songs on bass, "Hot Child in the City," I made a couple mistakes with rhythm, which messed up my notes. "Love Will Keep Us Together" is super challenging as well, especially when throwing in backing vocals, but that turned out pretty well. Everything else felt pretty good.
For my in-ears, I did bring my iPad to tweak things, but overall, I heard what I needed to, for the most part. I had my bass and vocals up front, with keys, guitar, and backing vocals a little less. As I played on, I felt like I needed more of my vocals, as well as guitar. I was able to hear some of Jen's vocals via the PA speakers. I asked Aeden to tweak a bit, but it's so hard to judge it in the moment. I figured as long as I could hear OK, it wasn't worth killing the momentum to get it right.
We took a quick break after the first set and got back to work after some water and bathroom breaks. For whatever reason, my in-ears seemed to be quieter than I'd wanted, as I mentioned earlier. Busting out the iPad didn't help; there was a lot of lag in moving faders and I didn't want to make things worse.
Looking down set 2, I recall that everything went fine. I always get a little looser at the end of the set. We added in "Fox on the Run," which we usually do just before the last tune. It gives us an opportunity to rock out a bit, a rarity in the yacht rock world. I tell folks we are a classic rock cover band that happens to specialize in yacht rock tunes.
Jen was great, mingling with the crowd on her wireless mic, engaging the dancers, getting involved. In my opinion, it takes some guts to get in front of someone and sing directly to them, or dance with them. I would have a hard time doing it, but she does it with ease and seems to love it.
By the end of the gig, there were still a handful of people dancing and singing along. Even Daniel, who manages SOH for Trey, was surprised that not as many people came out. He thought it may have been weather related (rainy and dank). Maybe it was a Huskies' hangover, with so many fans that went to ESPN College GameDay and then the game. I don't know. But money was guaranteed, so that's cool. We made a great impression on Trey and Daniel and they both said we'd do it again.
We are very lucky in Seattle to have a venue like this. Different from the bars and clubs downtown, but still able to book bands like Sunset Grooves, as well as original rock acts. Just a different vibe and a really friendly and accommodating staff.
