On Saturday night the Country Club Band and I played our Blown Away tribute to Carrie Underwood at The Cave in Big Bear, a local mountain ski resort community. The day beganat 12:30pm when I arrived at John's to load up his gear in my truck. It will be weeks before John can lift anything after his surgery. I loaded my bass rig, two keyboards, two powered speakers, sound module, mixer, and accessories under my tonneau cover. I think John was a little surprised that I got it all in there. We had to put my two basses in the back seat.
Google maps said it would take us almost an hour and a half to reach the venue. It's going to be near the top of that snow-capped mountain you see in the middle of the horizon. Google was very accurate.
There has been snow fairly recently but but most of it is gone now. It looks like Snow Valley is manufacturing snow. The slopes were busy as we drove by. They are due more snow this week.
This intersection is on top of the dam that created Big Bear Lake. If you take a left it brings you around the north shore. Our destination is on the south shore.
We are rolling into "The Village", a quaint downtown area with an alpine theme.
We have arrived at our destination. This downtown area was busy with tourists and locals.
We pulled around to the back of the theater to find a convenient, but very steep, ramp to roll our gear onto the stage.
It's a pretty nice venue that looked to hold about three hundred and fifty.
We had a nice setup dance after getting warmed up coming down the ramp. Dave and Eric, our sound crew, were excellent to work with.
After I set up John's rig and my rig I wandered around taking pictures of the venue.
Here's a closer look at FOH where Dave worked his magic.
Right at the back of the room was the adult beverage station.
Out front in the foyers were more instruments on the wall, most of them autographed.
This place is big into tributes as you can tell by the posters everywhere.
Sometimes there are chairs here right in front of the stage but tonight it was sort of a most pit.
Making my way back onstage to sound check I walked through the monitor room. You see Dave and Eric working on my amp. They took the DI out and mic'd it too.
I played my new Kiesel PB5 all night and had a good time doing it. I still don't have it completely tweaked, but it's getting there.
We're having a soundcheck party! All the important people are talking about IEM and monitor wedge stuff. I'm just waiting for my one note sound check.
I think here everyone took a little break from soundcheck and had a hypothetical theoretical discourse about the philosophical considerations of anthropic principles.
John and Jason are enthralled at all the multi-syllable words emanating from musical orifices. They should be singing country songs.
Claire checks her mic while Amanda lines up help for her merch table.
Here's the view from my mic, looking at FOH Dave for my one note sound check and "Testing one, two, three" stuff.
Amanda belts out her sound check. The ladies were having trouble with their IEMs clipping.
After sound check we made our way to the modular building that serves as a green room. It's pretty nice. There's a large room on one side and a smaller room on the other with the restroom in between.
There was plenty of soft drinks in the refrigerator and we made a pot of coffee. I needed a selfie in front of the background banner.
We were served teriyaki chicken, mixed vegetables, and rice for supper. It was pretty good and filling. I hadn't eaten all day and our downbeat isn't until 9:15pm.
Dave gave away this guitar tonight. We all got to autograph it.
After supper I went for a walk looking for an energy drink. I didn't find one but had a nice stroll.
The Village is charming at night with all the lights.
We gathered backstage at our appointed time and watched Carlie finish her set. She is quite good doing the acoustic single thing with her vocal harmonizer.
The ladies and I have a quick selfie before we take the stage.
The room was only half full but it was a very enthusiastic crowd. Everyone sang along and danced.
We are getting ready to play on the ladies.
John takes a picture of me taking a picture of him just before Jason counts us off.
Amanda favored the studs over the sequins tonight. She looked and sounded great.
Amanda made some new fans in the audience tonight.
Dave is helping Amanda give away the big door prize tonight. I think he had a winner picked out.
We played one encore, Carrie's cover of "Sweet Emotion" and then left the stage.
And quickly made our way to the adult beverage station where we each had one beer, an 805. It's going to be a long drive back down the mountain and we still have to push all of our gear back up that ramp. Oy!
After loading my truck we are ready to head down the mountain and leave this freezing weather right here where we found it.
We got back to John's house about 1:30am. After unloading my truck and loading his gear back into his care I got home about 2am to unload my gear. I just had a fourteen hour day to play a ninety minute gig. It's so great to be a musician.
Thanks for coming along and letting me share my fun with you.
Thank you for your indulgence,
BassCliff
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