I had a long drive to get to an easy gig last Friday. Me and ANCC (Arnie Newman's Country Club) had a great time playing at the Lobby Bar in the Viejas Casino. We played in conjunction with the Hank Williams Jr. "Concert in the Park" series, before and after his show.
The gig started when I picked up Johnny Magic Fingers at 1:00pm and made our way into San Diego County.
It was typical Friday traffic, really heavy in spots. The two hour drive took us three hours. But we arrived at the lovely Viejas Casino/Resort a half hour before call time.
We loaded in the side door because it was closer to the stage. It's a lovely casino.
Just before the stairs in the picture above we take a left into the Lobby Bar to find our stage.
We are going bare bones tonight, no amps, all IEMs, the V-Drum kit and sound system is provided. It's actually a pretty cushy gig. I just walk in and plug into the DI when it's ready. From the stage you can see the nice fireplace in the Lobby Bar.
This is Ian, our sound tech for the evening. He really worked hard tonight setting up a nice QSC system with all wireless mics and monitor packs.
This is the PA rack. It's got all kinds of derfingerpoken going on.
While Ian sets the stage I take a stroll. This is a classy looking casino.
This is the stage for the headliner, tonight is Hank Williams Jr. Behind our stage is a glass wall. Behind that glass wall is the concert area with the big stage on the far side.
John is set up and Ian starts dialing him in.
Jason and Amanda rode with Arnie today. Jason starts to get dialed in.
Arnie lets Ian know what he wants in his IEM mix. Arnie even went ampless tonight but brought his Kemper modeling unit so he could sound like a Twin Reverb or Little Walter.
Amanda tries some Snapchat filters on Arnie. They look so cute with kitten ears.
There's no filter that will help this old galoot. But Amanda is a cutie.
We finish our sound check and then make our way to our spacious dressing rooms.
This is the stage for the evening. It's pretty bare. We're relying on Ian to make us sound good.
This is Arnie's Kemper unit. It looks like something out of a 60s sci-fi movie.
The lovely Amanda Kate is ready to start the show.
Amanda says, "Let's go girls!" and we start one of her sassy girl songs, "I Feel Like A Woman".
Because of the small stage John had to be in the back row this time. Usually it's me.
Jason didn't play too loudly tonight. I wonder why?
Here are a couple of crowd shots just before doors opened for the Hank Jr. concert. These folks were here to drink and party.
We had a few dancers get the party started.
When the doors opened it was our break time until after Bosephus put on his show. I took a quick picture before we all walked off stage. We've got at least an hour and a half to twiddle our thumbs.
I stuck my head out the back door just long enough to take a couple pictures of the big stage. We were not allowed to step on the grounds unless we had a ticket. Oh well.
So I ambled up to the bar and got a big cup of brew. Then I noticed a couple of beautiful ladies enjoying their beers. I walked right over to their table and said, "Hi! I'm Cliff! I'm your bass player. I love to see beautiful women drinking beer!" Meet Bella and Stephanie. We chatted for a while and they requested a song we knew.
During our long break there were still quite a few people hanging around. It was a busy Friday night. We are just about ready to start up again as soon as Hank Jr. finishes his show. He ran just a little over his planned time. Nobody minded.
This is a pretty fun place to play
Bocephus finishes his show and we start ours. The crowd was bangin'!
I jumped in the middle of these ladies and we had a little dance together. Fun stuff.
All my rowdy friends are coming over tonight!
Do you wanna drink? Do you wanna party? Let's get the summertime started!
Amanda is having a ton of fun in front of this rowdy crowd.
We take one quick break to run to the little bass player's room but there are lots of folks sticking around for our last set.
There's a friendly cowboy out in the audience as we start our last set.
As we near the end of the evening there are still lots of folks here enjoying themselves.
This is Stephanie. She bought me and Arnie beer.
I found out she's a specialist who works for my retirement company. I gave her my card. She's going to help me retire well.
We might've played one or two songs past midnight because the audience was having such a good time. But then it was time to pack it up. There really wan't much to pack up. Everything John and I had fit on one cart.
Then it was a quick two hour drive home. We were offered a couple more dates here before the end of the year, playing in support of Leann Rymes and Lee Ann Womak but we were already booked elsewhere. Oh well. They'll keep us in the rotation for next year. Thanks for looking at my gigs. I'll be back in a few days and tell you all about our trip to Sacramento for our celebrity golf tournament gig.
Thank you for your indulgence,
BassCliff
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