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
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