Alas, this was our last engagement at Knott's Berry Farm's "Hot Summer Nights" season. In fact, they've already started gearing up for the Knott's Scary Farm season. Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, usually shows up for that shindig.
Anyway, it was a scorching 104º when I left my house. It's a good thing I had to load only two basses and a lyric sheet (for a new song that I haven't memorized the words for yet).
Traffic was light for my commute to Buena Park but it was still 92º when I parked at Knott's thirty seven miles later.
I parked in row 23 because it had a space on the end. That leaves me a long tote across the street and into the park.
This is just inside the security gate at the employee entrance. Unlike the guy at Downtown Disney, this guy only wanted to look at my boot bag, but he didn't even open it.
Oh! Look at that! The big stage has already begun alterations for Knott's Scary Farm. There will be no Suffragettes playing with us tonight. Bummer.
I arrived a little early and the bluegrass band, along with the mayor and sheriff, are having fun line dancing with the crowd.
We waited in the green room where it was cool until it was our turn to take the stage to set up and sound check.
Our FOH tonight, Chris, is helping Amanda with her mix.
We had a quick sound check, the stage is ready, and Arnie just has to relax for a minute.
Here we are now about to start and Amanda gives me a cute smile in front of the crowd.
Jed joined us tonight on stage. He set up his rig right in front of Johnny, just to my left. We made room.
The first couple of sets were regular Country Club Band sets. Here's Johnny Magic Fingers tearing up his boogie-woogie piano number.
We took it easy on Amanda the first couple of sets. We were saving her for the "Amanda Show" in the third set where we would be playing most of her original material. So she got to dance and clap a lot the first couple of sets.
Bam Bam does his thing.
Amanda lets the crowd know that we've had a great time this summer and as a special treat we're going to do a bunch of songs from her soon-to-be-released CD.
Arnie plays the intro and we're off with the Amanda Kate Show.
Jed got to sing a few tonight. He had to use my microphone because there wasn't enough inputs on the PA for another mic. We max out this little system.
We played our last set at 10pm, the Amanda Kate Show. It was very well received and the band did a pretty dang good job of recreating the Nashville recordings. It'll get even better once we play it a few more times. This is the first time the band has run almost the entire show in front of an audience. It was pretty cool. Then we had to get out.
As I left I took one more nostalgic look at this pretty park. I really like this place. It's homey and comfortable and much less corporate than that other amusement park with the big ears.
After the gig Arnie and I both stopped off at the little store across the street. I found a sixer of Garage Brewing Marshmallow Milk Stout. I really like this stuff. It tastes like slightly bitter s'mores with 7.1% goodness. It goes down real easy.
Arnie got Budweiser. He's such a redneck.
We said our goodbyes to the crew and the crowd. Everybody loves us. Of course, they say that to all the bands. But I have a feeling we'll be back as soon as they can afford us. Not that we're all that expensive but Knott's has to stick to a budget.
Thanks for coming along with me. Let's see, the band will be playing a gig tomorrow without me because I'm taking my daughter (it's her birthday present) to see Ringo Starr and his All Star Band. Next weekend (9/6-7/19) we're at The Ranch. Then we've got a couple of local gigs the following weekend (9/13-14/19) before our next weekend at Gilley's Las Vegas (9/20-21/19). It's only a slightly less busy month than the previous two months. But I'll take it.
Thank you for your indulgence,
BassCliff
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