As you all noticed, it was a full moon and Friday the 13th. How's that for a gig situation? Ours turned out pretty good. I hope yours did too.
Tonight me and the Hairy Legged Pickers of Arnie Newman's Country Club Band played at the Old Crow Smokehouse in Huntington Beach, one of our regular places (that we haven't played since January).
I left work just a little early. The crew was just finishing up construction for the day on our new stadium. I had stored my basses in my office out of the heat so that's all I had to load up when I left the office.
Traffic treated me very nicely with only a little stickyness in the usual places. When I arrived at the venue I as able to park pretty dang close to the elevator. That's a good thing since I was two stories under the ground at P2.
I unloaded my gear a rolled it to the elevator and up four levels to the second floor of the shopping center where the venue is located here on Pacific Coast Highway. It was a great looking day to schlep gear.
When I arrived Jason was already done with his setup dance. I started mine and soon after Johnny and Arnie joined me.
We arrived early so we would have time for supper and a couple of adult beverages before we have to sound check. That's Steve behind the bar. He was impressed that I remembered his name.
Steve, bless his heart, kept feeding me glasses of Stone Double IPA. I like the Stone IPAs. This one was slightly sweet, but not citrusy, refreshing, and at 8% it kind of kicked your butt.
It's a new rule that that band has to have supper at the bar. All of the tables are usually reserved. We didn't mind. I had the tri-tip. This was the first time I'd tried it and, oh man!, it was great! I love the BBQ beans and the slaw here.
John had the combo with ribs, sausage, and brisket. They feed the band really well here!
It's a pleasant evening here at the Old Crow. You can see Catalina off the coast through the open picture windows.
One of the managers, Saul, asked me if we had our female singer with us. I told him, "No, sorry. It's just us hairy legged boys tonight. But we can put Arnie in a dress." When I saw the poster I knew why he had asked. That's Francelle, she's in Nashville now.
My buddy Alec had been here just a couple weeks before with Truxton Mile, out of Bakersfield, my old home town. I'm gonna have to give him a call.
Now we're about to start and the place has really filled up now that the temperature has cooled.
Here we go! Arnie points at his favorite bass player in the band.
We play a set, a long set. Then I go say "Hi!" to your friend and mine, Grant, who was so kind to come out and hang out all night long. Thank you Grant. You are such a great guy.
There were also several bridal parties in the house tonight. This is Elysa and her crew. They were very kind to this old bass player.
And this is another bride-to-be. Her name is Bri. I was part of her scavenger hunt. Yes, she had to find some old country bass player to buy her a shot of Tequila.
We had Patron. Then Bri got up on stage as part of her scavenger hunt, with Arnie's hat (as part of her scavenger hunt). By this time we were in no mood to say "no". So, why not?
Then Arnie really wowed them with some Merle Haggard and some SRV.
I think I took this picture of John while Arnie was playing the intro to "Pride and Joy".
You see @McG enjoying the second set while the band is hard at work.
Unfortunately, we did not get a chance to ask Anastasia up to sing with us. Dang! I'm pretty disappointed. I hope she doesn't hate me for it. At 12:30am we played one more encore and then we packed it up.
I like this place mainly for the great food and the free beer. The drive is long. The load-in is horrible. The pay is just OK. The acoustics are miserable. The crowd is good-looking and enthusiastic. So we take the good with the bad. Now I'm at home enjoying a couple of Lagunitas Lil' Sumpin', one of my favs.
If you enjoyed this gig half as much as I did, then I enjoyed it twice as much as you. Take care.
Thank you for your indulgence,
BassCliff
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