Last Wednesday me and the ANB defied the odds and played an outdoor engagement at Downtown Disney. When I say "defied the odds" I meant in terms of the weather. The forecast had been for scattered rain beginning that afternoon continuing through the next day with increasing severity. This is an outdoor stage.
It was raining when I left my office to drive down to the Happiest Place On Earth. But as I got closer, the skies actually began to clear.
When I arrived it was down right balmy. In all my years working at Disney I have noticed that more often than not, there is a magic umbrella over the Magic Kingdom.
After a long, rolling schlep with my gear from the parking lot, through security (the guy wanted to look in all of my cases again. guh!), I rolled up to the stage to find half the band and the sound company well on their way to completing the setup dance.
Now it looks like the gang's all here and we are about to sound check. That's Isaiah on stage with the tablet dialing in the monitors. He works for Sean, who owns MxxMaster Sound, a great outfit. We work with Sean often.
Speaking of Sean, here are Sean and Isaiah making sure we sound better than we deserve.
Amanda takes a selfie with me as we get stared with sound check.
Jason is tinkering with his drums as Johnny noodles on his keys.
Since I have time, how about a nice picture of Austin and Amanda? Wow, such beautiful people make me feel so old.
Jason is still tinkering with his little Breakbeats kit. You also see Arnie's rig, a Little Walter combo.
You've seen my rig a bunch of times. Austin uses Arnie's DeVille.
It looks like Johnny is all set, ready to make some noise.
Here's Arnie pontificating to Amanda about the virtues of thumb picks and their effect on man-in-the-moon marigolds.
Amanda asks Arnie, "Is your thumb pick a gamma ray generator?"
Like I mentioned earlier, it was raining all around us but Mikey's magic umbrella kept us dry. We've started the show, the sun is going down, and I think somebody said something funny. Amanda looks amused.
Austin played mostly acoustic tonight. I really like the sound of an acoustic guitar in a country band. Austin is a really good player and vocalist. He'll be going on tour with Kiefer Sutherland at the end of the month, a domestic and European jaunt starting at The Opry.
Amanda gives the crowd a classic country song while Arnie contemplates his pedal board.
I'm still figuring out where I can take pictures during the show. There aren't too many long intros without bass. But here's a couple of action shots from the bass player perspective.
On a break I take a couple of pictures of the stage all lit up.
On another break we take the time for a band photo.
What's the old wives' tale? "Every time you take a band photo the band breaks up." Well, I guess Austin is leaving at the end of the month. Arnie and I have been talking about hiring our friend Candy, a fiddle player with whom we both have worked. She's pretty great.
Here's Austin wailing away on his Les Paul.
Jason kicks off a song by laying down a groovy kind of groove.
Arnie croons a country classic.
What's a night at Mickey's place without fireworks? Ooohhh! Aahhhh! Unfortunately that means our performance is over.
So we magically turn into roadies and get down to business. "Hi Ho! Hi Ho! It's off to work we go!"
It was a magic evening. Not one drop of rain all night. But we're getting lots today. Sean, the sound guy, posted some video to the social medias. It's not great quality but I'll post it up here just to give you an idea of how much fun was had.
Coming up for the weekend, we're all back at The Ranch with Randy back on steel guitar. It should be a fun engagement. Thanks for looking!
Thank you for your indulgence,
BassCliff
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