Toscana Country Club has turned out to be some steady work for us. They hire us for a few events every "season".
It was a very pleasant drive out to the desert today. The weather was great and I had left in plenty of time to allow for the Friday afternoon "getting out of town for the weekend" traffic, but there wasn't much.
Because of all the recent rain the landscape was almost verdant and there was plenty of snow up in the mountains. This place can be pretty at times when there's no drought.
I arrived at the country club gate just behind the wine truck.
The actual venue is that big tent behind the fountain on the far side of the parking lot.
There is new construction going on to the left behind the fountain. Perhaps that will be a new event venue to replace the tent.
I roll my gear in through the courtyard. It was such a pleasant afternoon.
The view here is outstanding. I snap another picture just before I roll into the tent.
This is the organization we are benefiting tonight, Child Help. They provide assistance and support for abused, neglected, and abandoned kids. They make available education, prevention, group homes, foster care and adoption services, treatment facilities, etc.
We're just a quartet today. Here we are taking the stage and doing the sound check thing.
I brought my small rig. It was plenty for this room.
The room looked really nice. Those are some big balls.
I rolled our cases and covers down to the storage and changed into my jobbing toga.
Since this was more jazz, pop, easy listening, we left our Scully shirts at home. Hal will be playing the drum machine this evening. He's really good at it.
I'll also be reading a bunch of standards out of our customized fake book. Kelly's had to transpose a lot of standards from guy keys to girl keys.
Here we are just about to start our cocktail set.
The patrons mingle and enjoy their adult beverages.
After the cocktail set we retired to the patio for our supper.
I know this doesn't look too appetizing in the picture but it really was great. That's a flattened grilled chicken breast with a potato pancake and green beans. It was delish!
After our supper we then played a dinner set for the guests while they dined. Here's the golf card just so you can see there were a couple of celebrities in attendance.
You might notice John O'Hurley (Mr. Peterman on Seinfeld) and Cheryl Ladd (Charlie's Angles) on the lists. Here's Mr. O'Hurley calling the live auction. Several items went for $10,000 and one item sold for $27,000.
Here's a shot of the crowd just before we took the stage for the dance set.
It was a short dance set. These things usually peter out early and tonight was no exception. We were done by 9:15, packed out, and on the road by 10pm.
I was home before midnight and I didn't even have to unload my gear since we are going right back out there to play another gig in the same room tomorrow night. Saturday will be the full band so it's back to Scully shirts and I-IV-V changes instead of "Fly Me To The Moon".
The next day it was, again, a very pleasant drive out to the desert, not much traffic at all.
Right here in the middle of the wind farms just north of Palm Springs is the exit for hightway 62 out to Yucca Valley, where you'll find a hip little joint called "Pappy and Harriet's" in a place called 'Pioneer Town'.
I've played Pappy and Harriet's back when Harriet still owned it, but after Pappy died. It's local, hip, cool, and quite a few "heavy's" will stop by from time to time. It's had a couple of owners since I've played there. Its most recent claim to fame was last spring when Sir Paul McCartney played there after his appearance at the "Desert Trip" festival. HERE is a video about that event. And HERE is a video of part of the performance. (There's a ton of other videos on Youtube.) A coworker of mine went. I would've gone if I'd heard about it in time. But I digress....
Back to my gig. It was another fund raiser for a scholarship fund that the country club members provide for local students. I arrive just after Art did. Here he is rolling his gear into the venue.
We set up on the same stage as the quartet last night. The last time the whole band was here the stage was bigger. We had to make do.
The rest of the band arrives and we perform our delicate set-up dance.
You can tell it's a country gig by the hay bales. Actually they are straw. You can also tell it's a country gig by the jail, and the horse, and the cactus, and the wagon wheel.
We finish our setup dance and this is the final product.
The room is now decorated and set up. It looks like it will be a nice party.
Since we have time I wander around the facility. These are some of the donated items being auctioned for the fund raiser. There were several baskets of wine. You also see some bicycles and cycling clothes.
After we set up, sound check, and dress we wait for our supper. I think the lads are all texting each other, "I'm hungry!"
We were seated in the enclosed patio of the club. It's a nice room but was kind of cool. They had the heaters on for us.
They gave us the cloth napkins. That means the dinner rabbit gets to pay us a visit!
Supper tonight was much like last night, except that the chicken was barbecue and the potatoes were au gratin with some mixed vegetables along with our green beans. It was quite tasty, good BBQ sauce.
Here's a glam shot from Kelly's new iPhone 7.
I gave Jack (sound guy) my camera so he could snap a couple before we got started with the cocktail set.
I like Mario's yellow kit. Seems he's hitting the coffee pretty heavy tonight.
The guests get to partake in the huge buffet outside.
Then after their supper they get to dance. It was a lively crowd for a while.
Yes, we even had line dancers.
We finished up early again. These things always do. We loaded out and headed for home. "We fooled'em again" was the sentiment.
My trusty Astro van has almost 150,000 miles on it and still going (fairly) strong. I made it home in time to get up on time for church the next day.
My next gig will be with the True Willie Band, another fly date up to Feather Falls CA for a couple of casino shows. Stay tuned for more bass player shenanigans and weekend warrior frivolity. Thanks for looking!
Thank you for your indulgence,
BassCliff
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