Me and the ANB had another little mid-week gig at one of our regular rooms near the beach. I like Stillwater Spirits and Sounds, lots of friendly locals, great selection of micro brews, pretty easy load-in, food, but the stage is a little small.
I had to leave work just a little early to make the trek down to one of the OC beach towns, Dana Point. The traffic was pretty thick near the birthplace of Richard M. Nixon.
I drove south until my hubcaps were wet, then I turned right.
It was a gorgeous day today. I wish I had time to go to the beach.
Here we are at the lovely community of Dana Point. This is a pedestrian bridge from one of the big fancy hotels.
I got the parking spot nearest the back door where we load in.
The venue shares the building with a music school. Right inside the door is a wall decorated with recital pictures.
If you go down the hallway you'll enter the music school. Instead we take a left, down a couple of stairs, and load in to the stage.
John is on stage arranging his gear. Jason is already done and is sitting at the bar waiting for his supper.
This is our soundman, Paul. He was terrific tonight. Several people told me this evening that this guy is the best and makes the bands sound great.
After John and I are set up on stage we have a little refreshment before we start. This is Mission Brewery's Dark Seas Russian Stout. It's great.
Soundman Paul does his sound thing on stage with Jason, getting his IEMs wired up. Jason isn't using his tracks tonight, thank goodness.
You see the sound equipment rack there on the right. The sub is on stage at the left. There are two sets of mains now, the 12" up high and the 10" at about ear level to bring the vocals out in the mix. Here's a little closer look at half of the FOH.
We need only two floor wedges up front for Arnie and me to sing. So that's all we get.
After I took care of my one-note-bass-check I wandered out to front to take a picture of the place. There was a good crowd having drinks and food on the front patio.
The beach is a block away. You can see the ocean between those trees at the end of the street looking south from the parking lot.
An interior shot with the stage curtain closed and lit up. I find the wallpaper interesting.
It seems I'm never very hungry when we play here so I got my favorite Dana Derby salad, greens, chicken, bacon, egg, feta, avocado, etc.
Now we're on stage just about ready to go, as soon as I take a round of pictures. Randy is with us tonight because Amanda couldn't be here. It's just us hairy-legged boys again. One of these days Arnie may have to shave.
I told Jason that when he does his head banging that he always looks blurry. Tonight he did his best to blur every shot.
John grabs a patch on his keyboard for the first song. John uses only half of his keyboards here because of the stage size.
It's a lively crowd tonight. The OC two-steppers are the best. The more old school country we played the more they liked it.
Arnie is probably singing a Merle Haggard song.
John plays his big boogie-woogie number, "Mama Screw Your Wig On Tight".
See what I mean? I point the camera at Jason and he starts banging his head.
The crowd loves to two step and swing dance. Everyone had a great time, even me.
Soundman Paul came to check up on us.
I first met Paul for the first time tonight when I was rolling my gear up to the back door. He asked me, "Hey, are you the soundman?" I gave him a quizzical look and introduced myself, "Hi, I'm Cliff, your bass player." He looked at me funny and said, "That's weird. I'm the bass player and my band is playing here tonight." He must've seen the look of sheer horror on my face because then he laughed and said, "Ha! I can only pull that joke on a band one time. After that they know I'm the sound guy." We both laughed and I told him that's happened to me before because of either double-booking or I just showed up at the wrong gig, or a week early, etc. That's how Paul and I started our evening. I thought it was amusing. But I digress.
Here's John before the curtain opens for the second set.
Randy and Arnie before the curtain opens.
Hey, I caught Jason off guard.
Oops. He saw me trying to take a picture.
We had a harp player sit in with us for a couple of tunes. He was pretty good.
Here's a quick round of selfies just before the last set.
The curtain took its time opening but Arnie got started anyway.
We were able to take care of a couple of requests for Shayna and Melissa. They liked the line dance.
We played 7pm-10pm, just three sets, and then it was time to say good night. Dave, drummer from the True Willie Band, stopped in for the last set to say "Hi" to everyone.
Dave, John, and I have a rehearsal before our trip to Austin with True Willie. We're all looking forward to that.
By the time I get my gear back into my trusty Astro van, the place is cleaned up and put away. Turn out the lights, the party's over.
One last "idiot check" after my pit stop and then I start my long-ish drive home, a little over an hour.
Here's one more picture from that evening that showed up on the social medias.
It was a pretty fun evening. I did some old Vince Gil and Hal Ketchum songs that we haven't done in a while. Friday night we are back at the Old Crow Smokehouse in Huntington Beach, also on PCH near the ocean. They've got great food there and the manager, Brandi, hasn't let me pay for a beer yet. What a nice lady. So, until then, thank you for stopping by!
Thank you for your indulgence,
BassCliff
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