Me and the ANB had a great night at The Old Crow Smokehouse in Huntinton Beach on a Friday night.
This room has a late start, 9:30pm, so I didn't have to leave work as early as I do on other gigs. The traffic wasn't bad, even though this was the "rush hour" because I was travelling opposite to most of the commuters. There's a game on at Angel Stadium tonight. The lights are on as I drive by.
Just like earlier in the week when we played at Stillwater, I drove until my tires almost got wet, then I turned right. Just across the intersection here at Pacific Coast Highway is the Huntington State Beach.
It was a gloomy "May gray" day with overcast skies and misty rain off and on. It's the normal weather pattern here. Don't worry, we'll be complaining about the heat soon enough. I pulled into the parking structure below the shopping center where the venue is located.
I had a short-ish roll to the elevator up to the second floor.
You can see the waves on the beach from here. It's not really 'fun-in-the-sun' weather right now but the beach is always nice.
Here's the front of the restaurant. There's nobody dining on the patio right now because of the light rain. These tables will fill up later when the rain lets up.
The Old Crow is pretty much in the middle of this retail shopping center, Pacific City, right on Pacific Coast Highway.
Looking across the street you can see Ruby's Diner at the end of the pier.
I roll into the joint to find Arnie and Jason just about set up.
I toss my gear on stage and then Johnny arrives. He asks to use my Rock-n-Roller cart because he forgot his. I help him with his gear. It's what bass players do.
This fellow is preparing meat for the BBQ right near the stage, in the kitchen behind the glass.
The room has the ball game on the TV. The last time I checked the Angels were up 4-2 in the 6th.
This is Josh, our sound guy. We've worked with him a few times in this room. I think he's getting used to us. You also see the ADA lift where we store all of our cases and junk. I hope we don't get in trouble.
Here's my favorite bar manager, Brandi. I have never paid for a beer in this joint. She's very good to us.
Brandi even took our supper order and served us at our table. I enjoyed the sausage with some baked beans and coleslaw. They've got terrific food here.
After supper we have a quick sound check. Everyone seems to be playing at a reasonable volume this evening. I think I'm really going to have fun.
Now I'm going to put on my cowboy clothes so I can properly entertain the masses. That's right boys and girls. Appearance is important.
I use my trusty Astro van as my dressing room down in the parking garage. I just change into my Scully shirt and eel skin boots. I look sharp. When I get back Arnie is emailing his logo to the soundguy so he can put it up on the TV screens around the room.
Here's a shot of the room from my mic. It's a great crowd despite the weather. There are visitors from Chicago in the house as well as a birthday party. A few musician friends showed up too.
We got the show started and tried to keep it at a fairly brisk pace. I didn't have a chance to take a picture until Johnny played the intro to his big boogie woogie number.
Arnie says, "Are there any Haggard fans in the house?"
We had line dancers on the non-existent dance floor.
Arnie says, "Here's my friend Cliff to sing you a real country song."
I think because we didn't play so loud tonight, like we did last time, the crowd stayed, they danced, and everyone had a good time.
Well, looky here! Our dear friend Grant was in the house, just like he threatened us he would be.
I didn't get a chance to visit with Grant as much as I'd hoped. Instead of three sets we were asked to play two longer sets with only one break in the middle. I didn't mind and I think it helped to keep the crowd there all night. The place was jumping. I think Arnie has a fan.
The birthday girl shared her cake with the band. I'm sorry I didn't offer you a bite, Grant.
This lovely young lady was having fun all night long.
As was the whole crowd. I was quite pleased that several of the younger folk came up to me and complimented the band tonight.
I'm not sure what's going on here but I had a chance to use my camera, so I did.
It was a generally younger crowd tonight and I got many requests for real, classic country music. It was pretty cool.
This is not a good picture but I found out that this young lady, Devin, is also from Louisiana, as am I, so we chatted about Southern stuff and things we had in common.
Then at 12:30am, after two long sets, we had to pack it in. The whole room was screaming for an encore but the soundguy had already turned on the house music and was not going to turn it off. I think he wanted to go home. Party pooper.
I gave Johnny a little hand with his gear and then I headed out too.
Thanks for stopping by and sharing my fun. We'll be back in this room in exactly two weeks. Next weekend we will be at The Ranch. I know you guys like that place. Until then, thanks for looking!
Thank you for your indulgence,
BassCliff
No comments:
Post a Comment