This weekend the Arnie Newman Country Club Band is back at our home base, The Ranch Saloon. We are there at least one weekend every month. It really is a great performance venue and I enjoy working there. It's a real cushy gig for me.
Friday evening I drove down after work and enjoyed the greenery along the crowded 57 freeway. It won't stay green for long once summer hits.
The freeway doesn't look too crowded right now but five seconds after this picture the freeway got a bad case of TMC and it was slow going the rest of the way. But I build these types of delays into my travel time. Since daylight savings time is in effect I arrived at the venue while it was daylight. Yes, it looks very corporate. That's because it is. The Ranch Restaurant and Saloon are on the ground floor of the Extron HQ building.
Here's our fearless sound man, Mark, at the helm. We threw him a couple of curves today because of the change-up in personnel and instrumentation. He took it all in stride and got us all dialed in. (Shhh! Don't tell him I took his picture. He hates that.)
Arnie, with his acoustic, poses with Crystal, who is taking Amanda's spot tonight. You also see Paul on the pedal steel, fiddle, and banjo. It took a little extra time to get Crystal dialed in as well as all of Paul's utility instruments.
Me? Like I said, this is a cushy gig for me. I walk on stage, plug into the DI box, plug my IEMs into the provided wireless pack, and I'm set. Johnny is still setting up all of his gear. I did help him carry it in. I'm not totally heartless.
We soundcheck until doors open at 5:30. Then we retired to the break room to run over some tunes. Sometimes we have a lot of fun in there.
And now it's supper time, my favorite time of the day. Tonight I had the Steakburger, fries, and the Heirloom Beet Salad. That beet salad is absolutely scrumptious.
Our instruments got their own seating while we were eating. I didn't use my acoustic on stage tonight, just in the break room to rehearse some new material.
We take the stage as the DJ finished up with the line dancers. Actually, DJ Leo is on vacation so the manager, Vince, was running the DJ from the FOH. Heather, the entertainment manager, and Andrew, the owner, are also on vacation. It's like we had the place all to ourselves. But we were good boys and didn't make a mess or misbehave.
Crystal puts on the show. She has a sweet, pure voice and loves the classic country tunes. She's not quite at sassy as Amanda but does a great job. We love her.
Jason played well tonight. The Ranch is using a smaller kit these days plus the snare shield to keep the stage volume down. But I don't care because I'm all IEM when working here.
Here's the gear that Arnie and I are using this weekend. He loves his Little Walter amps. Jason had put on his cowboy hat for a special number, an old bluegrass tune "Alabama Jubilee". It's a fun ten-step.
At the end of the evening I realized that I had not taken a selfie with Crystal. She was more than happy to oblige. Arnie was more than happy to photobomb.
I was the first to arrive for the Saturday night festivities. I put in my food order right away because I hadn't eaten all day. I opted for the Buffalo Chicken Sandwich and the Kenter Greens Salad. Fantastic.
Then at downbeat time Vince, one of the mangers (who was also doing double-duty as the D.J.), announced us.
I like Vince. He's a real "get in there and get it done" kind of guy. When we put on the Carrie Underwood tribute show recently here at The Ranch, Vince got behind the bar and was serving drinks and washing glasses because it needed to be done.
Here's a bass player's view of the show.
Yes, Paul plays banjo too. Please don't hold that against him. He's a real stand-up kind of guy. Paul just gets it done. I'm glad he's been able to work with us.
Here's another view from the bass player perspective. This must've been a long intro that gave me time to take a couple of pictures.
Jason is getting into it as the bass player takes his picture.
Johnny Magic Fingers smiles as the bass player takes his picture. Johnny played great tonight.
Hey! Look! The bass player is taking a picture of the bass player.
It was a good looking crowd tonight. I wonder where all the ugly people were.
My friend Gary showed up tonight. Gary walked up to the stage and pointed his camera at me so I posed. I'm such a nerd.
This is also Gary's picture, just a couple of bass players. Gary usually stays busy working with The Swansons (original country/rock/Americana) and The Who Experience (a Who tribute) plus a Tom Petty tribute that's just getting started.
On a break I was headed to the bar to wet my whistle and took this picture of the dance floor.
I met my compadres and shared a cold one and wome conversation about good music.
Yes, Arnie and I were wearing the same shirt only his was the "gold" and mine was the "charcoal". Then, at the top of the last set, Crystal and I took our selfie during a long intro. This gal is so sweet, such a good sport and such a good talent.
We played our four sets, we had our fun, we drank our beer, and then said "good night". The D.J. kept the line dancers going while we vacated the premises.
We will be right back at The Ranch tomorrow, Sunday evening, for a corporate event. We got to walk off stage, leave our gear all set up, so we could walk right back on tomorrow night for more musical jocularity and fun. The only bit I'm worried about is that Paul is working an earlier gig down by Fashion Island. He gets done at 4pm and our downbeat is at 5:15pm. He'll have to hurry.
Thank you for your indulgence,
BassCliff
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