La Mirada Regional Park 8/6/15

Greetings and Salutations!

I think this is the third summer I have played at La Mirada Regional Park with The Kelly Rae Band. This is called "National Night Out"  and celebrates law enforcement and community partnership.

  

When I pulled in the parking lot Art was already there in his big yellow truck waiting for the sound crew to finish setting up the portable stage-trailer. I don't care for this stage that much. The portable stages are always harsh sounding with lots of reflective surfaces. But we made it work.

Right behind the stage was our power source. It gave is no issues at all and was very quiet.

Ross Creations was the sound company. They had some good JBL gear out front and QSC monitors with 6 mixes.

This year the crew set up the mains a little too close to the stage. The subwoofers really resonated under the raised stage and made my bass sound huge on stage even though I wasn't very loud and had dialed back the low end on my rig. But I was kind of digging it.

As we loaded in the staff was still putting up a posters for the event sponsors.

This is Spencer, our FOH guy today. He did an admirable job along with Ishmael and Larry, his sound crew. They were on the ball and took care of all our needs.

OK, the band is starting to get settled on stage. We should be sound checking soon.

It was warm that day, I even brought my fan. I was surprised it didn't make any noise sitting on top of my amp like this.

I wish that I had remembered that this gig has us facing right into the setting sun. I didn't bring a hat but luckily the cloud cover offered us some off and on relief. Next time I will definitely bring at least a ball cap and be a little "bro country".

OK, now that we're done with sound check I step out into the park to get a shot of the whole setup.

There were a few food vendors here, a taco stand, kettle corn, and ice cream. Unfortunately we didn't get fed on this gig. You can't win'em all.

This is Deputy Sheriff Mark. He's one of our regulars at The Ranch. He's a nice guy.

This is State Senator Tony Mendoza with some of the local city officials, mayor, city council, etc, making their announcements and speeches. I was happy to see that they kept it short.  

And here we go! On with the show! Jeff has gong completely wireless with his mic and key-tar.

Art and Daniel put the icing on top of the musical cake that we bake.

As we look right into the sun, Kelly gets the party started!

Jeff has fun singing for the crowd.

Kelly got her girls on stage to sing a song from their CD, Songs About Dogs.

Kelly announces the winner to a raffle before we get back to more dance music. The crowd had their fun.

The band poses for a picture as we play off into the sunset.

Then the lights come on and it's time to pack up.

In my next blog entry, Jeff and I are working with Rodeo Revival at The Shoppes at Chino Hills, so that should be fun. I'll get it posted soon. This past week I've played  Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, and will again on Tuesday. I'm getting it while the getting's good! 

Thanks for looking! I'll post up Sunday's gig (8/9/15) in Aliso Viejo soon. It was a blast! 

Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff