Saturday we played for a construction company's Christmas party at Wilson Creek Winery. It was rainy when I left my house but it had started to clear and was turning into a pretty nice day to drive through the local wine country.
The place was jumping when I arrived, people all over the place drinking wine and having a good time. I had few details so I left Big Betsy parked in a No Parking zone, the valet said it was OK, and wandered around looking for clues as to where we'd be playing.
Arnie arrived not too long after I did and we made our way to the
load-in spot for the Barrel Room around back of the main building where
all the event rooms are.
Everyone pulled into the gated area to unload then had to drive a half mile to park in the employee area. I nabbed a really close spot to park just as someone was leaving, then just rolled my gear in. Lucky me. I was right next to a vineyard. Imagine that.
This is the Barrel Room, one of the smaller event rooms in the building. We rolled our gear through this room into the foyer in the next room.
Yeah, it was kind of a weird setup. The dinner was going on in one room and the music in another. But we set up where we were told. Claire is here again because Amanda is sick.
In the next room was the main entrance to the building. Beyond that was a large event room with another party, but no band, and also an event room upstairs where a party was also happening. It was busy tonight.
I set up my gear and then wandered over to the sales building to get a glass of merlot. My server said he could not sell merlot by the glass. I explained that I'm in the band playing the event next door and I just looking for something to wet my whistle. I'd be happy with just about anything. He poured me a glass of a pretty good red and said it was on the house. What a nice guy. I tipped him well.
It looks like the gang is just about ready. I didn't know why we weren't sound checking.
Then Jed noticed that Arnie didn't have his guitar on stage. He had forgotten it. Arnie called Mrs. Arnie to deliver it. Mrs. Arnie and all the women in her family were having their annual Christmas baking party. Mrs. Arnie wasn't mad. But she told Arnie that her Christmas present just went up two karats. Here you can see the guests in the next room.
Yes, all of those barrels are full of wine being aged.
Once Arnie has a guitar Jed is able to step out front and get our mix dialed in.
Here's the front of the event center. Our room was to the right of the main entrance.
We started at 6:30pm and played for a couple of hours while the guests enjoyed wine and dinner. Claire photobombs my selfie.
Once the guests were done with supper and a couple of glasses of wine they were in a party mood.
We were scheduled to play until 11:30pm. Yeah, that's a long gig. And these folks stuck around all night.
We played long sets but we did take a couple of breaks. We had a nice supper, chicken, potatoes, carrots, beef short rib, and a nice glass of something red.
On the next break we had some decadent chocolate moose cheesecake.
Then we played some more. I had to sing "La Bamba" by request. I found out I can't play my bass in Spanish.
At 11:30 the bus pulled out. Several guests complimented us and let us know how much fun they had. We got tipped $300 on top of pretty good pay. They really liked us!
It was not a loud gig. The PA didn't even have a sub. We all tried really hard to keep the volume down and had no complaints at all. It was a late night though. After all was said and done I did not get home until 2:30am. I'm not really used to that any more. But I survived. Thanks for looking!
Thank you for your indulgence,
BassCliff
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