Last weekend was another trip to one of my favorite rooms, Feather Falls Casino and Lodge near Oroville CA on the home of the Concow-Maidu of Mooretown Rancheria. This time we played a dance show as opposed to our regular dinner show. It was a different sort of crowd, must've been the new moon.
Since it's a quick, one night fly date I travel pretty light with just one bass, a carry-on, and a back pack. Yes, this time I brought along my ukulele to keep myself entertained.
Mrs. BassCliff was kind enough drive John and I to the ONT airport after we got him loaded up in Bob van Astro, my trusty Astro van. John travels light too bringing only one keyboard, a sound module, and his carry-on luggage.
Here we are, seasoned travelers, waiting at the ticket counter to check our stuff.
But before we reached the plane these sketchy looking dudes accosted us. I thought they were going to abduct us and take us to Tatooine but once I weaponized my ukulele (an old bassist mind trick) they decided to let us go on about our way. We were not the musicians they were looking for.
(It was May 4th, as in "May the Fourth be with you.) We arrived in Sacramento over an hour before the rest of the crew. So guess where we waited? That's right, in the closest place we could find beer.
I got bored so I stared pickin' and grinnin'.
John even tried his hand at plinkin' and pluckin'.
I supposed I did the better job. Ashlian had never had anyone to sing and play the ukulele to her. Since she served us beer I sang, "Ain't She Sweet".
We wait while Roger secures the rental car. We got held up by an unorganized customer and made us late for our soundcheck. Drat.
And just to show you it's a small world, while we were waiting at the car rental one of my coworkers from my day job was passing through on her way back from a conference. It was great to run into Carol out in the wild.
Roger finally secured our vehicle and we loaded up our gear to make the drive to the venue, a little over an hour.
We always drive through the cute little town of Marysville on the way. We usually stop here for a bite to eat or a cup of coffee. We've got our routine down.
The van barely fits into the alley behind the showroom. We unload and make our way to the stage. We are an hour late for soundcheck. Drat.
The stage is all set for us. Joe and Alex take such good care of us here. We've worked together so often now that they can anticipate our every need.
The youthful and always chipper Alex will be running the monitor board.
Here's Alex's office. Dave sets up his snare. The rest of the kit is backlined.
This is my backline. I sure am glad I don't have to move it.
There's something a little different this time. Instead of the usual SVT, on top of the fridge is a Portaflex. I liked it.
On top of the amp you see my Ray Charles costume. I use it for "Seven Spanish Angles". I'm just trying to keep it real. Here's Guitar Mike and his blue Tele. I think I like his Tele better than his Strat, especially for all the vintage country that we do. His backline amp failed during soundcheck but Joe and Alex had another as a spare. Those guys are great.
Here's Joe, all in a blur, getting Magic Fingers Johnny wired up. John takes the longest to set up because he has such a complicated rig, four keyboards, sound module, mixer, a mini midi rack, etc. Oh wait, it looks like John has only three keyboards this time. I guess that makes 25% less work for him.
As we are setting up I notice somebody familiar on the information display. We don't start until 9:30. I'm going to need a nap before then.
After setup and a quick soundcheck we make our way to the lodge. This time I got a nice room on the first floor.
I have an excellent view of the parking lot.
Since we have some time before supper I decided to take a walk around. I had forgotten that this lodge as an indoor/outdoor pool.
I'm going to walk down to the corner convenience store to pick up supplies. This is looking back at the lodge with our rental parked in front.
Right next door is the casino and brewing company.
After I return from my errand it's supper time. We all got vouchers for the buffet. John opted for the prime rib with a little roasted garlic on the side.
After a huge plate of salad I decided to have the Mongolian BBQ with a thick slice of pork tenderloin.
For dessert I used my all my will power and had only one slice of blackberry pie with a dollop of ice cream on top.
While we were supping I noticed a couple of familiar faces on the information displays in the restaurant. I see my friend (Bass)Jack and our soundman (Guitar)Joe are doing their houseband blues jam soon. Break a leg guys!
After a nap I head down to the showroom. It looks like a good crowd tonight.
I see Johnny is already on stage getting his sounds lined up.
Yep, there are quite a few folks in here waiting to hear us make some noise.
We take the stage just a couple of minutes before downbeat to tune up and make sure we can make some noise. Here's Mike.
Dave looks regal atop his drum throne.
John is ready to play all the sounds.
I guess this guy is ready to be the bass player.
True Willie looks at me while telling one of his stories. He was in good form tonight.
We had lots of dancers tonight, and a couple of others who made the night interesting.
Dave is having a good time.
Moving right along with our fast-paced, Las Vegas style show, Mike is waiting for T-Willie to finish a funny anecdote before we launch in to the next musical selection.
The folks enjoyed themselves, dancing the night away. It was about this time that a few of our guests got a little over enthusiastic. One lady and her friend kept dancing around in front of us, tossing notes up on stage, and trying to draw me over to the edge of the stage so they could chat. I finally reminded them, "Sorry, I'm putting on a show!" And another gentleman just waked up on stage with a couple of drinks in his hand and gave them to T-Willie, right in the middle of a song! John had to play an extra solo while security escorted him from the stage. I guess they left the stairs too close to the front of the stage.
There ya go! Now T-Willie and Mike are really getting into it!
This nice lady in the Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt, who tossed notes on stage and tried to get our attention during the show, told us she was a promoter and wanted to hire us for the new HRC that was going in somewhere close sometime soon. After the show we were polite, Roger gave her his card and said, "Call me." You never can tell. Maybe?
We were supposed to be done at 11pm but we played over quite a bit, we were all having so much fun. We hadn't played the show since January and it was great knocking off the dust. Joe and Alex pounce on the stage while we do our meet-and-greet after the show.
Joe said, "Hey! No Pictures!" So, of course, I had to move up and take a close-up. My sincere thanks to Joe and Alex for making my job so easy. I'm looking forward to the next time we play here.
After the meet-and-greet, a couple of people there swore Roger was the real Willie, we bellied up to the bar for a barley wine called Crouching Cougar.
John and T-Willie played a little video poker while we all enjoyed our beverage.
Afterwards we retired to our rooms, got a few hours sleep, then loaded up the truck for our trek back to the airport. I do the loading, Johnny does the navigating, Roger does the driving.
We cut it a little close this time. We had to drop off Roger, Mike, and Dave at the airport. Then John and I took the rental car back. It seems this rabbit follows me around a lot.
The flight John and I took as an hour later than the other guys'. We'd heard our flight was full. It looked full.
But I'll let you in on a Southwest secret I discovered. You know how they do their "cattle call" boarding, you're not given a seat assignment but rather a 'boarding position'. You line up according to the number on your ticket. You're either in the A, B, or C group with a number following the letter to let you know where to stand in line when you board. Then once on the plane you can pick from any open seat.
John likes the isle seat. I can sit anywhere, I don't care. So I usually sit in the middle seat to leave the window seat open. I know, that looks kind of weird. But every time I do it, nobody sits in the row with us. Even though this flight was supposed to be full, there must've been one passenger who didn't make it. Guess who got the empty seat in their row. That's right, Johnny and the bass player. I guess since we're sitting next to each other, either nobody wants to go over us to sit by the window, or they just don't want to disturb us.
Don't tell anybody about my seating secret. Once everyone was boarded, John and I were able to spread out and enjoy our flight home. I'm sorry I got my camera out a little late for this one. We flew right over Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear Lake. You can sort of see Big Bear Lake right next to that last bank of clouds in the middle of the picture. The lakes were pretty.
It was another quick, fun trip. Next weekend me and the ANB are at The Ranch. Then the weekend after that John and I are flying to San Antonio for another TW gig. Thanks for coming along for this one. Thanks for looking!
Thank you for your indulgence,
BassCliff
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