It's been a hectic, inconvenient, and somewhat stressful run-up to the debut of "Blown Away, a Tribute to Carrie Underwood featuring Amanda Kate with Arnie Newman's Country Club Band". We got'er done and it was a pretty successful "off-off-way-off-Broadway" opening.
That's right, every table and booth had been reserved by all of our friends and fans. There were even a few industry folks there interested in booking the show for their corporate clients and others. The day before we had a rehearsal at The Ranch to run the show and get lighting and other logistics ironed out. Here we are setting up for rehearsal on Tuesday evening. There's a rare glimpse of our sound guy, Mark.
These were the tools of our trade. Part of the show will be on acoustics.
John doesn't have an acoustic piano but he's got a mean accordion patch in there somewhere.
Here we are enjoying rehearsal. Crystal is joining us for this show. Crystal and Amanda have been singing together for almost two decades. Jason is on a little cocktail kit we were thinking about using for the acoustic part of the show but it ended up being more of a hindrance than a help, so we nixed the idea.
The day of the show I headed down into the OC at rush hour. The traffic was thicker than usual. I'm not sure if this is a good sign.
I arrived plenty early and found Jason already there putting the finishing touches on his electronics. He would be triggering some loops and tracks for our play-ons and segues. Everything seemed to work OK.
On the big screen is the poster advertising this special Wednesday night showcase.
We gather in the green room to have supper and change our strings.
I had my favorite Buffalo Chicken Sandwich and a chopped kale salad. You can also see most of our first set.
While we were readying ourselves, Melanie and Toni were taking a photo op next to the banner. That's their dance partner, Jason.
Just before we take the stage the ladies grace this old man with a selfie. I'm a lucky old country bass player.
We take our places on the sides of the stage so we can make an "entrance".
It's a great crowd tonight. Last Wednesday there were 25 people in the room to hear the band. (Wednesdays are usually a 'try out' night for new bands who want to get in the rotation.) Tonight there were 400 in attendance. We were delighted that so many of our friends and regulars at The Ranch would come out and support us this way. Jason triggers our walk-on music, we take our places, then start the opener right on time.
Amanda was really shining tonight.
We had hired an extra AV guy, Alex, to run the lights so that Mark could concentrate on the sound. We even got approval from the boss to add an extra 5db to our sound pressure levels, all the way up to 90db. Mark can really work magic if you give him room to work.
Amanda looked fabulous in her green sequins jumper.
Randy, Daniel, and Crystal were having fun and taking names.
We did have an open dance floor so people took advantage of the dance-able tunes on the set list.
Amanda was very personable to the audience. She took a minute to tell the folks what some of these songs meant to her. For example, "Cowboy Casanova" is a song that she liked so much she bought a horse and named it Cowboy Casanova. Stuff like that.
Tonight was all Amanda, all the time.
Crystal was featured on a couple of tunes this evening. Those two sing very well together, almost that "sister harmony".
I can't get enough of that green jumper.
The first set went by pretty quickly. The dancers found plenty to dance to.
On Wednesdays they like to split the show into two sets rather than one long one. That's OK. I need a beer anyway.
On the break I ran up to the bar to grab a cold one. Everyone is still here! Wow!
After a quick costume change for Amanda, we were ready for the second half of the show.
We started the second set with a few acoustic numbers, "Leave Love Alone", "Mama's Song", "Jesus Take The Wheel", and one of Amanda's originals, "The Package". The acoustic portion of the show was really fun. I'd like to do more of that kind of stuff.
Amanda enjoyed singing to her Mom and her Grandma, who were both in the audience tonight. It was a special evening.
Both Amanda's Mom, 70, and Grandma, 90, have had health issues lately but they were both doing great tonight and enjoyed the show.
I had a ton of fun tonight. I got in trouble for a couple of measures in "Before He Cheats", just a brain fart. Hopefully nobody noticed. It won't happen again.
Here's Arnie. We must be doing the Carrie Underwood cover of "Sweet Emotion". That's FUN to play.
Crystal is a talent in her own right but she is more than happy to support Amanda.
Did somebody say something funny?
Amanda, Amanda, Amanda. What can I say?
After the show we schmoozed and rubbed elbows. Look who was in the crowd tonight, one of our favorite fans, you know her, you love her, it's Tammi!
This is Toni. She reserved a whole section and brought all of her crew out to see us tonight. We love Toni.
Amanda and Toni.
Randy and I pose with a couple of Toni's crew, Ed and Dorothy.
Tonight, in addition to the Carrie Underwood material, we did two of Amanda's originals, the acoustic version of "The Package" and another called "Temptation". It's more of a rocker.
This is "The Package".
This is Amanda covering Carrie Underwood covering Aerosmith. Carrie actually performs this song in her concerts so we thought we would too.
Here's one last bit of cell phone video scraped from the social media pages, just to give you an idea of how much fun we had.
It was a really good debut of the tribute show. Thanks for looking!
Thank you for your indulgence,
BassCliff
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