I took lots of pictures on this trip so it's going to take at least three posts to share the highlights. I hope you don't mind.
I've just returned from a fun engagement in the town of Hanford playing for their first annual 'Night in the Country' Country Music Festival. The ANB was asked to headline the event with a couple of local artists sharing the stage before us. It's always fun to get out of town and make a noise somewhere new. John and I carpooled again. My daughter dropped me off at 10am so we could put all our gear in his Rav4.
Yes, my youngest can be quite dramatic. John and I traveled light since we were staying just one night so that we could fit my rig and all his keyboards. John borrowed a pair of smaller powered monitors and we were able to fit everything, my amp and cab, two basses, four keyboards, two powered speakers, a mixer, and some stands. It was tight.
His Rav4 was stuffed to the gills but made it over the Tejon pass with no trouble. Here we are just starting the climb north on the 5 freeway as we leave the 210.
It was a beautiful drive over the pass. We're passing Pyramid Lake.
I just love the view of the San Joaquin Valley as we make our descent on the north side of the Ridge Route toward Bakersfield.
We stopped at the bottom of the hill to have a light lunch. Johnny and I both had salads.
Then we were on the road again. We were making good time and would arrive ahead of schedule.
Except for the city of Bakersfield, the scenery along the 99 freeway was all houses, barns, and fields. There is lots of agriculture, dairy, nut and fruit orchards, vineyards, etc, in the San Joaquin Valley. It's been called the "breadbasket of the country" because of the long growing season and fertile land.
Just about 15 miles west of Visalia is the town of Hanford, the seat of Kings County, population about 60,000. They've even got their own Costco.
This will be our humble abode for tonight. Johnny and I decide to get settled into our room and then go check out the Civic Center Park where we'll be performing.
If you can see that yellow banner above the street a couple of blocks down, the park is just to the right of that banner. I love the look and feel of this downtown area. It's friendly and comforting.
Our accommodations are more than adequate.
Being on the top floor (the third floor), we have a terrific view of the backside of downtown Hanford.
John and I took our gear down to the park to check out the scene. It's lovely here.
We pulled into the park next to the Hanford Auditorium where the crew was setting up lights and sound.
Everyone was so helpful and friendly. We met Jim, Bill, Marty, Matt, and others who kept pointing us in the right direction. Here's the view from Marty's FOH.
The folks here had already set up their chairs so that they could get good spots for the show.
Next door to the auditorium is the Veterans Memorial and Senior Center. Our green room would be in this building.
John and I dropped off our gear under an Eazy-Up and went back to our room to relax, freshen up, and check out my bass player friend Gary and his trip to Seven Magic Mountains. Gary is playing in Las Vegas this weekend. I'll be there with Arnie and the band in a couple weeks.
The first band started at 6pm. That's when John and I arrived back at the park. There was already a good crowd. The crowd got bigger as the day cooled off and folks got home from work.
The bands used the Legion Hall room to get out of the heat, have some snacks and drinks.
This Legion Hall has been around for a while. Look at those old pictures on the wall.
We had a cooler full of drinks, turkey wraps, veggies, cold cuts, cheese, and cookies.
The first band was called 82 Deluxe. They are an energetic honky tonk band that plays real country music. It was fun listening to them.
82 Deluxe plays a lot of the local bars, rodeos, fairs, etc. This crowd knows them and loves them.
I chatted with their bass player, Johnny Nino. He played upright for their entire show. He plays upright pretty much all the time. He's a cool cat.
As the sun started to set and the shadows got longer, the park started to fill in. There were a good many food vendors and a beer/wine truck in the park. Everyone was enjoying themselves.
82 Deluxe finished their set, full of Merle, George Strait, George Jones, etc, then JJ Brown's trio took the stage. JJ Brown is a fine local talent who writes some pretty catchy pop country and puts his twist on his covers.
JJ's bass player (actually a utility player), Travis Brooks, not only played left handed upside down bass, he also blew harmonica. He also plays banjo, mandolin, guitar, and who knows what else.
As JJ Brown and the band played their set, we started staging our gear. There was no backline. I offered mine earlier but this wasn't organized in such a way as to take advantage of sharing gear. No biggie. Johnny Nino had a little 2x10 MarkBass combo and Travis Brooks used no amp at all, just went direct and put his bass in the monitors. Sounded great. They were selling these t-shirts at the festival. We all got one on the house. Oops, I'll get a picture of the front later, but it's basically the logo on the city's flyer for this event.
JJ Brown is finishing up. We've got time for a selfie with Amanda.
On JJ's last number he gets the line dancers going. JJ reminds me of Hunter Hayes meets Keith Urban.
Then we began our setup dance. It took a little longer than I'd hoped. We really didn't get a soundcheck. While the FOH guy, Marty, was saying "Gimme some kick drum" the monitor guy, Matt, was running around to each of us asking, "What do you need in your wedge?" It was down and dirty and delicious.
The crowd waited patiently while the emcee made announcements and the DJ played music. We were supposed to start at 8:30 but we had to stretch it to almost 8:40.
The crew gets Johnny Magic Fingers hooked up and dialed in.
Matt is on the far right of the stage getting Amanda's IEMs tuned up. Everyone else is pretty much set.
And we're off! We kick it with a big party song, "I'm Here For The Party".
Amanda must've gotten her IEMs working great because she really wailed tonight.
The crowd didn't mind us hairy legged boys but they really loved Amanda.
Jason was hitting pretty hard tonight. I saw Amanda reach for the volume control on her IEM pack a couple of times. I know she doesn't put any drums in her ears. Jason can bang so heavy it penetrates any ear plugs.
Moving right along with our fast-paced Las Vegas style show, how about a sassy girl song? Where are my girls tonight!?!?
At one point in the show Amanda asked if someone could bring her a beer. She said, "In fact, are you boys thirsty too?" In a couple of minutes there were fifteen beers stacked up behind us. These are nice folks.
John didn't get to play his big boogie-woogie number tonight. So I settled for a dark and moody photo of our keyboardist.
Everyone was having a great time. I got a lot of compliments on my shirt tonight too. I haven't worn this one for a while.
There was a couple in the audience who got engaged so Amanda and I sang "Shallow" for the happy couple because that was about the only semi-romantic sounding song in the set list tonight.
It was a tender, heart felt moment.
We played a couple of encores but still, our ninety minutes went by very quickly. We didn't even have time to finish all the beers. Quite a few folks walked right up on stage to tell us what a good time they had. They were all friendly and respectful, quite pleasant.
After the crowd left John was able to pull his car right up to the stage area so we could load up. We went back to the room, had a couple of beverages, and watched a movie.
The next morning we were back on the road home. We had to get an early start because John had an appointment in the early afternoon.
On the way out of town we saw one of the street signs promoting the festival. This is the logo on the front of the t-shirts.
Then, again, we drove past houses, barns, and fields on our way home. I like the farmland.
Yeah, something like this. This is heading south on the 99 toward Bakersfield.
These are vineyards on the south side of Bakersfield. There are also scattered oil rigs pulling crude out of the ground. The area is still pretty big in oil production. Do you see those pipes running up the foothills?
This is the Edmonston Pumping Plant. It pushes the California Aqueduct up over the Tehachapi Mountains to bring water to a thirsty Southern California.
This is the Grapevine exit, the last exit before you start your climb over the mountains up to the Tejon summit.
Again we pass Pyramid Lake, one of the reservoirs in the aqueduct system.
Do you see that little road off in the distance? That is part of the original "Ridge Route", a two lane highway that wound like a snake through these mountains and served as the only route, other than the coastal route, between Bakersfield and Los Angeles.
As we make our way south we realize that our friend, "Coastal Eddie" is visiting Southern California. It's now 60 degrees and just a half hour ago it was 90 degrees.
We make our way past Six Flags Magic Mountain, through the construction and the lane reassignments. This slows our progress just a little.
Eventually the traffic breaks loose and we hit the 210 freeway which will take us to our final destination. This is where we started this thread so I will bid you adieu.
We had a very fun visit to the heartland of California. It's very different from the urban/suburban atmosphere where I live. More people seem to care more and it makes for a better society and better way of living.
Next weekend Johnny and I have a fly date to Feather Falls Casino outside of Oroville. You've seen me blog about that gig several times.Until then, thanks for looking and thanks for sharing this blog with others. All the best.
Thank you for your indulgence,
BassCliff
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