The day after I returned from my vacation visiting a couple of grandkids, I jumped right back into this "weekend warrior" thing in the middle of the week. Seems I've been doing that a lot. What do you call a weekend warrior that makes "war" during the week? A mercenary?
Summertime has reached Southern California. When I left work for my gig this past Tuesday it was a toasty 97ยบ right outside my office door.
But I wasn't too worried. We would be covered and it would be more than twenty degrees cooler down by the beach in the coastal town of Laguna Beach, where the Festival of Art/Pageant of the Masters is being held. Since I had to leave so early in the afternoon the traffic was quite bearable.
Load-in time was 3pm and I pulled in right behind drummer Dave. There's an alley behind the stage area that's fairly convenient.
I rolled my handy-dandy Rock-n-Roller cart around to the stage and found John. He was thinking, "Man! I got a lot of gear to set up!" Yes, John. Yes you do.
It's a nice venue, nice stage, nice sound system. We even get rugs to stand on. That's very nice on the concrete stage.
Here we are in full setup dance mode. That's our soundguy, Sid, wiring up the monitors. It's pretty great working with Sid. He's a no-nonsense, get'r'done right the first time kind of guy, very professional.
Yamaha is one of the sponsors of this shindig and they let the festival use the AvantGrand for the entire run, about two months, for all of the entertainment ensembles.
Since this was a local gig, guitar Mike brought out his 1964 Twin Reverb. Coupled with his old ES335 he got TONE, really great TONE. The Roland is a backup. You never can tell with these old amps.
I was going to take a picture of the mural behind the stage but some guy got his big head in the way.
Drummer Dave brought his nice kit with the logo. I brought my usual rig, GK MB500, Carvin RL210, Carvin LB76, and my JBS for backup.
I was taking a picture of the early crowd but that same guy got in the way again. Hey! Do you guys recognize anybody in the audience? I think I see Mr. and Mrs. Grant right there close to the front, in the middle of the second row.
Sure enough, Grant came up and said "Hi" to the band. I'm glad you guys made it out to hear us knock off the rust.
I've heard it said that the camera adds ten pounds. Well, there were seven cameras recording the show tonight! I'm going to be HUGE! Again, the video was provided by Yamaha along with multi-track recording. We should get the footage, after mix-down, and have some good promo material. Cool. That's Tom, the head camera guy, at the rail.
After setup and soundcheck we retired to our green room to get dressed and take advantage of the hospitality. There was a good spread of finger foods, light snacks, and drinks.
T-Willie is getting warmed up before we walk out.
Here's guitar Mike with his beautiful tobacco burst 335. The guy back there in the "monitor position" is actually recording the performance for later mix down.
Here I am taking a picture of the drummer taking a picture of me.
Magic Fingers Johnny checks his settings just before we start the show.
This year the organizers had set out several extra rows of table and chairs around the performance area. Everything was filled and there were still lots of people standing, dancing, singing along. It was a fantastic crowd.
Here's my side of the crowd at stage left.
Here's the crowd at stage right. All of the extra seating was taken.
Like I said, it was an enthusiastic crowd. Even though we hadn't played together for a while, there were a few "uh-oh" moments, the good people here had just as much fun as we did.
After the show we grabbed a beer and had our regular meet-and-greet. I thought this was a notable greeting.
Then I said my good-byes and rolled my gear out to my truck. We had to park a couple of blocks away this year. But it was easier just to roll out and load up rather than fight the traffic to move my truck closer. I don't mind. I needed my workout today.
We'll be back playing this event again in a couple of weeks, on Aug. 14th. I love this place. The only bad thing is the traffic getting in and out. I guess you can't have it all.
I've got more gigs to share. I'm a bit behind because I've been so busy lately. Thanks for stopping by!
Thank you for your indulgence,
BassCliff
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