Screaming Sally's Saloon 8/22/2020

 Hey, howdy, hey!

It happened! A real gig! It was a long, hot, dry day outside but it was a tonne of fun. This was the first show that our friend Nate, who owns Affordable Productions as well as Screaming Sally's, has put on since March. 

The "opener" is a newly formed band, Cross County Line, put together by Jed and Claire. They don't really have a guitar player yet so Arnie was helping them out today. You might remember Hal on the keyboards. Hal and I have worked together with Kelly Rae. It was good getting caught up with Hal. Steve on bass and Justin on drums are worship musician friends of Jed and Claire, both fine, solid players and good people.

It was an early call time, 10:30am load-in, so I backed up the truck to garage about 9:15 to load-er up. Did I tell you I "fixed" my MB500 that went out at my last gig? (Temple City, 7/1/20) That's why I brought my GK 800RB as a backup, just in case. Since we were outside I also brought the big GK Neo410.

I knew I'd have to stay hydrated so I stopped by my local Dollar Store and picked up a few energy drinks and four six-packs of bottled water. As I left the parking lot it was alreay 91º at 9:30am. Oh boy!

Even though the gig was close, only about a half hour away, I'd never seen the place. I got an early start so I could drive past it, get lost, look up the directions, turn around, and find it again.

Screaming Sally's Chicken Saloon is located on a little side road off a frontage road at the intersection of two major freeways at the south end of the Cajon pass. It's a bit inconvenient to get to. I drove past it the first time because I was looking for the big chicken on top of the roof. I found out later that it was stolen. (Really?) Here's the place as I pull right in the front.

Right next to that Saloon sign used to be a huge chicken on that roof. Who would steal such a thing? But this place has a lot of personality, like this mural on the wall.

I pulled around back to the stage area and found Arnie's equipment van. Rob had also brought his truck and trailer full of gear. Rob, Jed, Arnie, and Kevin had arrived at 8am to start setting up all the stuff.

Here's Jed and Rob showing off their handiwork. They brought out the big guns, the small arms, and all the ammo today.

I just tossed my rig up on stage and tried to stay out of the way until they were ready for me. I found a patch of shade in the seating section so I could show you the stage, dance floor, and stripper pole (the round red stage on the left).

Here's another view of the stage from the upper patio. We did not have anyone take advantage of the stripper pole today. Maybe that was a good thing?

While I waited to sound check I wandered inside the place. Just inside the patio is the pool room.

Our hosts, Nathan and his wife Amber, had a pretty good selection of taps. I'd drink three or four of those. I limited myself to two beers this afternoon, an 805 and a Shiner Bock. I hydrated mostly with water today.

Here is more of the main room. I guess you'd call the decor "mid-century roadhouse".

Our green room was quite charming.

 
I also brought out the big guns, GK Neo410, GK 800RB (backup), GK MB500. It turned out that the adapter I was using to go from Speak-On to 1/4" phono plug had failed. So I bought a real adapter cable plus a couple new adapters as backup.

Hold on, here are my two main string babes. I played the PB5 most of the day. The LB76 was used on our last "encore" set. We played an extra half hour, just 'cause. We had tips and requests for some rockin' numbers. After Amanda's show we did a "power 30", stuff like "Sweet Emotion", "You Shook Me All Night Long", "Life Is A Highway", and "Pride and Joy".

Johnny Magic Fingers looks like he's ready to sound check.

And who is this handsome old country bass player?

I just love photobombs. Claire got me pretty good.

There was a scrim covering the stage. It was still a little bit brutal in near 100º weather today.

All in all, this is a pretty good outdoor place to have something happen. It's a little rough but it has a good sized covered stage, Arnie and the crew brought out the good sound system, there were plenty of shady places to hang out, dance, enjoy the music and the beer, etc.

Here's Rob running the board. He's getting pretty good at this stuff. Normally he runs his medical manufacturing company. But he likes having fun doing this on the side.


 
Here's a rare view of Amanda Kate without makeup during her soundcheck. She's still just as cute as she can be.

 

 Yes, you see Paul on steel (and fiddle) and Daniel on fiddle too. For one of our encores we did "Devil Went Down To Georgia" with twin fiddles. One of them played the devil and the other played Johnny. It was awesomely fun.

After our sound check, Cross County Line got up to do their sound check. I took a little cell pone video of these guys I'll share later. I've also got a bit of fan video of Amanda and the ANCCB.

During their sound check I moseyed up to the outside bar and met Destiny and Brittany, a mother/daughter team of barly pop babes.

They must've noticed I was the bass player because they charged me full boat for my 805. I didn't mind.

Wow, it looks hot up on stage. Arnie did change clothes for the set. The only shorts on stage today were worn by the ladies, and the drummer.

While the opener was playing their set I wandered around, mingled, worked the room, and found some friends who came up all the way from the OC to see us. Maybe you remember Beth and Gladys from some of my other reports. That's Terri, Arnie's wife, also getting in on our selfie. I see some club members were thinking about photobombing us.

 

 

Here's the merch table, Arnie's wife Terri and their daughter were minding the store. 

 

Cross County Line playing their set of 90s Country cover music. They've had only a couple of rehearsals and sounded terrific. 

The old country bass player looks like he's been in the sun all day. I guess we're about to start our set.

 

 

Well, we're talking about starting our set. After CCL did their set, the ANB did a set as "The Hairy Legged Pickers", and then we brought Amanda up for her show after a short break.

 

 

It look like Amanda is thinking about making her way to the stage. Yay Amanda!
 

Here's our selfie just before we start Amanda's show. We learned a bunch of her new material. It's really good and we had a blast playing it.

Claire and Amanda, aren't they lovely?

Amanda had fun telling the folks about her music, her Mom, and how they used to write together.

"She was a fast machine, she kept her motor clean..."

Yes! We have dancers! The crowd was not as populous as we would've liked, but the owner/promote loved the show and wants to book us back again.

 

Jason was physically distanced and wearing a mask today.

John tried to duck my picture.

 

 

 After Amanda's show we played a half hour of rockin' tunes and then packed it up. Thankfully I have is that little pile in front of the big pile. 

 

It was a short drive home and I was there just about dark. I was tired and sunburned but quite satisfied with the day I'd had. I'll got some video edited and uploaded to share. Hang on. Thanks for looking! 

Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff