Hoefflin Foundation Benefit/Mann Biomedical Center 9/17/16

Hello my friends!

This event, The Michael Hoefflin Pediatric Cancer Foundation "An Evening Under The Stars", was held at the Mann Biomedial Park in Valencia CA. It was a very nice venue. They even made a promotional video and mentioned our name. We played this event last year but it was held at a different facility.

It was a bit of a drive on a Saturday afternoon, near the amusement park Six Flags Magic Mountain. The traffic wasn't too bad. It took me only two hours to make the normally hour and a half drive.

This venue was much easier to navigate to and much easier to park and unload. We were able to stay parked on the street right behind the stage area.

The event used the same sound and production company as last year. This was the view from the stage as I place my rig.

Mark was our monitor guy. He was good. I could hear everything. And his crew was very attentive and helpful. Here's the monitor console.

You can barely see the lighting console on the other side of the stage. Estevon was running lights. I didn't get a picture of him either.

It takes a lot of gear to put on a production like this. This was the view behind the scenes.

This generator was supplying part of the power. I'm sure some was coming from the facility itself.

Here's the view from out front. Those two huge screens were used to see the presenters and show off the live auction items.

I was the first to arrive. Here's my amp-selfie.

This is Brent at FOH. He ran the show last year too.

I did not get a chance to sample the Martini Bar.

Here's a small section of the silent auction tent full of donated items.

These were our luxurious accommodations, a StarWagon. It's actually not bad at all. It was air conditioned!

The rest of the band starts to arrive and set up. My old buddy Rick is playing drums with us today since Mario can't make it.

I brought my regular #1 rig (GK MB500 and GK Neo410) for this large outdoor gig. Rick has a pretty good monitor setup.

During our sound check, all of a sudden, the stage got really boomy. In addition to the four dual 18" JBL subs out front, there were two Meyer subs front and center under the stage. Somebody just figured out how to turn them on. They were pumping!

If you look closely at picture #7 above you'll see them. They really made the stage go BOOM!

You can see a curtain was put on the front of the stage. We must keep up appearances.

Here's another shot further back showing the guest dinner tables.

Now that we are all sound checked we relax in our StarWagon where it's cool.

We were fed supper, chicken and vegetables, but I didn't get a picture. We also had cheesecake and cookies for dessert. There was still a lot of time to kill so I wandered into the silent auction tent to listen to the acoustic duo there.

There were lots of speeches, heartwarming stories, and thank-you's going on.

After the sun went down it cooled off a little. But we were going a little stir crazy with four hours between sound check and downbeat.

I wandered around and checked out the live auction from backstage. Someone had donated a real Picasso to help raise money, about a 20x24 line drawing called "Head". I was surprised it went for only $2500.

Here we are backstage just about ready to go on.

Here's a little better picture. It shows off my new shirt better.

The Master of Ceremonies, Rick Garcia, a local LA TV station newscaster, gives away his last auction item just before we hit the stage.

Then the stage crew gets us set up as quickly as possible.

I handed my camera to Mark, the monitor guy, so he could take a few action shots. He takes pretty good pictures!

This is a photo from a friend that Kelly had posted to Facebook.

Since the live auction was over a little quicker than scheduled we actually went on early. But that was OK. We had a good hour and a half show planned and just ran it down. Originally we were scheduled to play only forty five minutes but the crowd stayed, danced, sang along, did the conga line, and generally enjoyed themselves. Then it was time to pack it in and drive an hour and a half home.

I didn't hear the final total about how much money was raised this year. Last year it was in the neighborhood of $150,000.

And that was my gig. Next weekend we have a double on Saturday, and I mean two long doubles, and another long gig on Sunday. Saturday will be the big benefit car show at the Orange County Fairgrounds, Cruisin' for a Cure. (Here's an article from last year.) Then the afternoon will be a private party at the Science Center in Santa Ana. Sunday we'll be playing for a housing development grand opening. I might have to call in sick on Monday so I can recover.


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff

DCA Cars Land, 9/15/16

Hello friends,

Me and the KRB played a private party for the Mouse. It was a service awards celebration for Disney employees. The park was closed at 5pm so that the employees could attend, have dinner and drinks, ride rides, dance, and just generally party. The guests were employees (and their family/friends) of 10 years, 15, 20, etc, all the way up to one guy who had been working there 60 years. Imagine. The location for this epic party, Cars Land. Where else?

We actually started the gig the night before, loading in and sound checking after the park closed. Here I am sitting on my back line gear, waiting for the fun to begin.

We were backlined with full sound for this event. This was what the Mouse had for me. Not bad at all.

We were held up a bit by the drum riser. After it arrived we and the stage crew started assembling the performance area. It was kind of small so we decided to let the bass rig and drum kit share the riser.

That's Gabby and Josh working hard. We've worked with them before and have a lot of mutual respect for each other.

Art's backline was a Matchless, waaayy to big of an amp for him. But he managed to tame it a bit.

Mario is making sure his stuff doesn't creep off the riser.

Daniel and Art are wondering if all that is going to fit.

Jeff is waiting for his chance to sound check.

While I'm waiting for the stage to be wired I wander around and snap a picture of the lighting console.

Here's Josh also running FOH and monitors from the console.

Probably not the most ideal spot for a can of Diet Coke, but nothing went POOF!

Kelly and Gabby take a moment while we start sound checking.

We finish our sound check about 1:00am and are back the next day at 5:00pm to be picked up by the shuttle from the employee lot.

We have to tweak the stage a little because they had to strike a lot of the gear and set it back up. There was just too much dew in the air to just leave it covered up all night.

Jeff plugs in his key-tar in hopes of making the show more showy.

Then Gabby walks in on my amp-selfie. She's a sweetheart.

Art and Daniel get situated while Gabby makes sure they have everything they need.

What the heck. Here's another amp-selfie with Gabby and Erika, who was our "handler" for the event. She made sure we were well-informed and guided us to the green room, which was a bit of a hike through Bug's Life.

And we're back with our costumes, waiting for the party to get started.

Erika informs us when the doors will be opening and exactly when our downbeat will be. The schedule is sometimes adjustable.

(Gabby used my camera to take some pictures out front.) We're given the green light and start making noise.

The sun slowly sets as we play our first show.

At least we were not staring into the sun as we had done for most of our summer gigs.

The stage was just a little on the small side and with all the plants and props, Jeff had to set up behind me.

Oops! You caught Kelly with a music stand on stage. There were just a couple of songs we do only at Cars Land that she needed lyrics for.

Whenever Jeff would play his key-tar we would trade places. I'd stand behind the keys and sing on his mic while Jeff stepped up front and sang on my mic.

More action shots.

Gabby did a good job with my little point-n-shoot camera. Most people don't know how to take good pictures.

These pictures are a little pixelated because I edit them to make the file size smaller in order to load faster and take up less online storage space. Perhaps I overdid it with this batch. Sorry.

Here's Art plugging in and getting ready for our set after dark.

Kelly was rocking the leopard pants.

This dang smoke machine was right behind me and kept pumping all night long.

But it really made the lights look good after dark.

We played until 11:30pm, five sets. It really didn't seem like a long night but it was well worth it. We saw many friends and the crowds were enthusiastic.

We even got a fireworks show. What's a night at The Happiest Place On Earth without fireworks?

The night went by pretty quickly. Then we unplugged and walked off stage to let the Mouse's crew do all the dirty work.

We love all the stage crews at Disney. I haven't worked with a bad stage tech or sound guy yet. It must really be the happiest place on earth. My thanks to Josh and Gabby and the rest of the crew. They are top-notch people.

Thanks for looking! I'll be back soon with one more gig to get all caught up.

Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff