Friday, September 22, 2017

Downtown Disney 9/13/17

Hello friends and neighbors!

It's a slow day at work so I'll toss up my gig report.

Last night me and the KRB had a great time at the Downtown Disney District playing on the stage in front of the ESPN Zone.

On my way to the venue I drove right by where the new Star Wars attraction is being built.


I parked in the "Simba" lot, one of the employee's areas, to unload my gear and schlep it past the hotel and into the DTD district.


Since we had our friend Sean running sound for us I knew I could bring my small rig and let him handle the heavy lifting. We are getting pretty good at this setup dance.


Here's Sean and his crew, Mark, with Kelly talking about the sonic implications of applying lipstick to microphones. Oh, and also to give Sean a set list so he knows who's singing what.


Sean, his company is MxxMaster Sound, has several nice PA systems. This is all active QSC components with a Touchmix console. Sean is a busy guy. He's got eight projects he's supplying sound for this weekend.


Hey! It's sound check amp-selfie time!  How cool is that?


Art offers a stick of his new Trident Fish gum to Daniel. Pay no attention to the photobombing drummer in the background.


Alrighty then, it looks like the stage is all set up and we are sound checked. It's time to put on our cowboy clothes.


Skip and Kelly join me for an amp-selfie.


Kelly kicks off the show in fine fashion.


Daniel has his way with that devil in Georgia while Kelly gives me a smile. Dang, she is absolutely stunning sometimes.


Mario is having a good time. I think he likes it here. It's magical. He's a bass player's dream drummer. 


"If you're happy and you know it clap your hands!" Skip is happy too. Going forward Skip will be doing most of our gigs with us. He's really working into the band nicely, picking up harmony parts and starting to sing lead on a couple. He'll be a real asset to the band.


I gave my camera to Mark so he could take a few from out front. My cranky old point-n-shoot camera takes some finesse to get good pictures.





We built up a pretty good "stroll by" crowd and had a few dancers.


On a break the band gathers around one of the planters by the stage. Kelly's friend Laura was taking pictures of the band. I think that devil must've made Daniel a little tired.


After the break we are back at it! We'll sing "My Church" and chase that devil away!


Mario's red-ish sparkly kit looks good in the lights. (It's actually "coral" sparkle.)


Skip says a little prayer during the intro to "My Church".


Then we get a request to play "Devil Went Down To Georgia" again!


And the crowd eats it up!


This is a collage that the sound man, Sean, posted to his Facebook page. Sean always posts collages of the gigs he runs sound for.


I have to share this. Kelly's friend, Laura, took a clip of the band using an app called "Boomerang". This is how it turned out during one of our choreographed numbers. Hilarious!



We got to end this gig a little early, at 9:30 (it usually goes to 10pm), because we are loading into Cars Land tonight for the gig today (Thursday, 9/14). So we pack up and head out as quickly as possible. We're supposed to meet our shuttle at 10:30.


As it turns out, there was no shuttle available for us. So we are instructed to leave the BCML lot and proceed to Gate 8 and drive into the bowels of the Magic Kingdom to park ourselves near the Cars Land stage.


It took a while to get all of us through the security checkpoint because we were taking our private vehicles onto the property. But we made it to the Cars Land stage where we were backlined. Mario got a nice sparkly white kit and I got a nice Ampeg SVT classic with a 410 cab.


There were several on the crew, Joshua, Noel, Ascensio, we have worked with before from other private events and our "Nashville" show a few summers ago.


We are all set up and sound checked now. Here's a shot of the stage just before we leave.


We'll have special costumes for this gig tonight. I can't wait to see how The Mouse dresses us.

We left the park at 12:30am. I was late to work this morning. But that's OK. I'm leaving early to make up for it. The gig tonight is for the Employee Awards function. The Mouse likes throwing parties for his cast and crew. I guess it's not a bad place to work. I'll be back with another report on tonight's gig in a day or two. Thanks for looking!


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff


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