Me and the KRB played a summer concert in the park for the city of Placentia at Tri-City Park, a very nice facility. The staff let me pull my trusty Astro Van through the park right up to the back of the stage to unload. I had to drive slowly through some wildlife so as not to disturb them too much.
Then we had to park in the parking lot down the block. Well, I guess it wasn't that far away. It was still in the park, just not that close. When I exited my trusty Astro Van I noticed more wildlife.
There were Canadian geese and Egyptian geese on the grounds. We had an international crowd here this evening. You had to be careful where you stepped. These big birds kind of made a big mess.
The staff had set up a nice little tent behind the stage for some shade to use as our green room. It came in very handy. You also see the toy hauler the sound company used to hold its gear.
This was our hospitality this evening. We certainly took advantage of this cooler full of water and Gatorade.
Hal and Mario have arrived and put their gear on stage. The PA system today was pretty dang nice. I know it doesn't look like much, but it really kicked. The owner knows his stuff, has been doing this a long time, and pretty much designed and built his FOH speakers.
You see "Grumpy" at the rack. This is his system, and his toy hauler. Grumpy is 85 years old and still does sound company work. He's quite a character.
Hey! Looky there! Here comes Art rolling through the park.
It looks like the band and the sound crew are busy doing all the set-up stuff.
Here's Grumpy, his given name is Lee, at the FOH.
A view of the stage from the FOH mixer. I think Mario is just about ready to give Grumpy some kick drum.
This is the view from my mic as we sound check. It's still pretty warm out here. We had a 4pm call time.
You might notice that my gear tonight looks just like last night. That's because I didn't unload from the night before. I'm really getting lazy in my old age.
Jeremy, we've worked with him before at Knott's and other places, is taking care of monitors on his iPad. Kelly checks her busy communications hub.
The stage is all set. No, we don't have any cover. I forgot to bring a hat. I just had to suffer.
Yes, that's Art's pedal board case in front of his amp. He usually has a pretty loud stage volume. Even with this "shield" I don't have to put any guitar in my monitor. We can all hear him just fine.
I walked up to the "little bass player's room" near the entrance of the park. There is a good sized pond in the park, some might call it a small lake. This is only about half of it. The rest is behind me.
I guess this explains why the waterfowl like to congregate here, perhaps while they are migrating, or summering here, or wintering here.
While I was here I snapped a selfie in front of the sign at the park entrance.
This is a picture of the grounds as I made my way back to the stage. People seem to gather in the shady spots first. It was probably 90ºF at downbeat.
But it wasn't unbearable because of the breeze if you could find some shade, like these guys.
It's just about time to start. Here is Mario taking his place.
Grumpy has some last-minute maintenance to do on Kelly's mic while Daniel and Art check their tuning.
We are just about to start the show. I can tell because Kelly and I just took a selfie in front of the crowd.
Our announcer announces us, as they are want to do.
Kelly kicks us off with a little something we like to call...."music".
I grabbed this picture from the social media, off of the park's Facebook page.
We took a quick break so as to let the staff give away some raffle stuff.
Then we were back at it. Kelly is singing something that I'm not playing on right now. This is probably the first verse of "Stuck Like Glue", which we did for a friend of the band out in the audience tonight.
Kelly keeps Mario company while he sings "Can't Stop The Feeling". I usually play a little something on the intro to this but decided not to tonight so that I could take a picture.
Daniel does "Devil Went Down To Georgia" while Art does the rabbit ears thing.
Mario thinks that's pretty funny.
Hal just plays his little keyboards and wonders how we still have a gig.
Kelly gives me a smile.
Another picture from the social media captures a bit of our choreography.
We've just finished and the crowd is starting to disperse while Kelly talks to some fans.
Lo and behold! Who do I see walking up to the stage? It's my friend Johnathan. This guy is a glutton for punishment. He's been to at least three of my gigs now. I think that's some kind of record.
Johnathan plays in an excellent Journey tribute band, Another Journey, and I hope to catch one of their shows soon. But they make the big bucks and fly all over the country, rarely playing local shows. One of these days I'll catch them in concert, I promise. (Or is that a threat?)
Here's another cell phone video that showed up on the social media.
Now it's time to pack our gear and get home. It's great to finish at 8:30pm.
If you had half as much fun as I did, then I had twice as much fun as you. Thanks for looking! I hope to see you soon. I've got lots more summer gigs coming up. Stay tuned!
Thank you for your indulgence,
BassCliff
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