Yorba Linda, 8/25/19

Greetings friends and neighbors!

Yesterday afternoon Amanda joined us hairy legged boys for a concert in the park at Hurless Park in Yorba Linda. At the risk of being chastised by a stranger on the internet, here is a picture of my leisurely drive down the main boulevard of my hometown as I make my way to the freeway on a warm summer Sunday afternoon. It's a pretty street.

Hurless Park is a lovely, large park on Imperial Highway right in the middle between the 57 and the 91. I didn't take any pictures on Imperial Highway, just so you know. You can barely make out the stage area on the far side of the park looking between the play area and the restrooms.

It was all kinds of inconvenient to load in from here without hauling my gear a half mile or driving through the park so I pulled up to the parking lot next door at the community center. There was a sidewalk from that parking lot that led to the stage area.

I remembered this because I've played this park with Kelly Rae a couple of times. I rolled on down to the stage area and introduced myself to Caleb, our one and only sound guy, crew, FOH, and monitor person. He was very attentive and really great to work with. His company is called CD Audio.

He's a strapping young lad who I'm sure after a few years, when all this gear becomes a real hassle to move, will hire another strapping young lad to do the heavy lifting. For now he said he's too cheap.

These kids were playing in the amphitheater area behind us, cute as can be. They kept clapping and cheering even though we hadn't yet played a note.

I brought my large rig for this gig. I should be using this one a lot more. I can actually hear myself with the 410 cab.

I brought this rig so Arnie could take it home after the gig. My sub is going to use it for a rehearsal and show that I'm going to miss. Due to some previous commitments Vivi Rama is going to take my place for the ANB's show on Sept. 1st. I'll miss another show on Oct. 19th, while I'm in Jacksonville with True Willie. I think Norm Stockton is going to sub for me then.

Like Jason and John, Arnie drove through the park to unload at the stage.

Being covered for this concert was most excellent. We've been uncovered a lot this summer. That's not good for this old, fair skinned, country bass player.

Here's a picture of Arnie's new pedal board. I'll be glad when he gets it down and stops futzing with it all the time. Sometimes it takes him a minute to get set up.

The underside is just as impressive. That's a wireless receiver there on the left.

 
It looks like our setup dance is done. The lovely Ms. Amanda Kate has arrived. Let's do the sound check thing.

Amanda knows how to get her way during sound check. She's so dang cute.

This is a nice stage. I only wish I'd brought a rug to stand on. We had people in the stands behind us too. It's like theater in the round.

Here's a wide angle shot of the stage. It's a pretty big park but the attendees stayed to the shady areas.

Amanda brought some of her merch to sell. Her husband ran the shop while we performed our ninety minute show.

I walked over to the clubhouse to freshen up and change. The clubhouse is behind me.

Our set list included some of Amanda's original material and a few of her Carrie Underwood tribute songs plus a couple of new covers.

We are ready to make some noise! Amanda and I have our pre-downbeat selfie while Arnie photobombs.

Jason is not giving me the finger. He's pointing at the Amanda Kate logo hat.

I think Amanda is talking about doing a sassy girl song while Arnie checks his tuning.

"How are ya, Yorba Linda!"

I think Arnie has just too many doo-dads and gizmoes on that pedaly thing.

Jason keeps time during the intro. I had an earplug in my right ear so he didn't hurt me today.

We're having us a good time now!

Now everybody raise your hands up in the air like you just don't care!

Now throw'em down toward the ground and wave'em all around.

(Yes, I was addicted to the Hokey Pokey. But I turned myself around.)

We had a pretty good crowd of dancers. Mostly it was just too warm so folks stayed in the shade and enjoyed their wine coolers.

Johnny Magic Fingers got to tear it up on "Mama Screw Your Wig On Tight". The song is called that because if Mama doesn't watch out, she'd lose her wig dancing the boogie-woogie to this one.

We are nearing the end of our show, the shadows are getting longer. We had to play early because there is no budget for lights in this park, I suppose.

Amanda claps along while Arnie sings a good ol' Merle song.

Just as the sun set we finished up our ninety minute set and began the stage strike samba.

We had a lot of new material on stage today, some of it with only one rehearsal. We all had our brain farts but managed to muddle through. There were at least a half dozen folks who were nice enough to tell me how wonderful we sounded and how much they enjoyed the concert. I guess we did OK.

In the coming week we've got Downtown Disney on Wednesday night and Knott's Berry Farm on Saturday night. It'll be an amusement park week. Thanks for coming along for this one. Sorry, no food, no beer, no video for this gig. I'll try to do better next time.


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff 

Cowboy Canyon, 8/23/19

Hello friends and neighbors,



I know it's been over a month since I last posted a gig blog update. I've been so busy playing that it's hard to find quality time with my computer to tell you about it. I will make a concerted effort to get caught up over the next couple of weeks. I've got about twenty gigs to share with you. Here we go!

We've played this room several times. This was supposed to be one of our Carrie Underwood tribute shows (Blown Away) but Amanda took the night off to celebrate her daughter's birthday. Just us hairy legged boys were there to do the pickin' and grinnin' at the Cowboy Canyon. Even though it was a late start, 9:30pm, I left work an hour and a half early. It's a good thing.

 The traffic was sticky everywhere, all along my commute to the gig. From the surface street to the freeway, on the freeway, at the exit off the freeway, etc, just everywhere.

My normal hour, hour and fifteen, turned into a two and a half hour commute to the gig. Unbelievable! The only reason you see Lake Elsinore from this side is because the Railroad Canyon Road exit was so backed up, it was more convenient to go to the next off ramp three miles down the road, turn around, and take the exit from the other direction. Nutz!

Then it was no picnic getting to the venue on Railroad Canyon Road. I'd heard there was some kind of accident but I never saw one. But there sure was a bunch of congestion. I'm glad I left some wiggle room in my travel plans.

Jason had arrived first and was in the midst of a solo setup dance. I joined him.

Just after I rolled my gear to the stage, Arnie cut in on the setup dance. We were having quite the ballet.

Here's a shot of me in our "dressing" room. It was far from private because the whole restaurant uses this room as a, uh, um, restroom.

After I've freshened up, I enter the room and take a picture toward the stage area.

I stopped by the bar to say "Hi" to Jordan (sorry, no picture) and pick up a nice Get Up Brown on draught. It was so good, I had a few during the evening.

The venue has a great menu. Tonight I had the pork chop with an apple chutney and sides of the BBQ beans and broccolini. It was excellent.

Then after supper it was time to do our sound check. Scotty was there to help us sound as good as possible.

Johnny Magic Fingers is pulling up the set list on his iPad.

Here's my regular gear and Jason's Breakbeats kit. Somehow he still manages to play this little kit way too loud.

The new guy, Jed, was on the gig tonight. He sang a few.

Jason sang a few.

Johnny did not sing tonight but I could swear I saw smoke coming from his fingers.

We had a pretty good crowd. Mostly it was the ladies who were dancing.

 

That's Amy there in the middle. She and her friends loved it when I sang that old Pure Prairie League song "Amie". It's one of my big hits.

We played three sets, quitting at 12:30am. Then it was time to pack up and get outta Dodge. I loaded up my handy-dandy Rock-n-Roller cart and made my way out to where Big Betsy was parked.

It was a LOUD room. I put one ear plug in after two songs. I put the other one in after five songs. Arnie did not bring the new IEM rack. He and Jed ran out of time today on the way to the gig. Maybe next week we'll give it the maiden voyage.

And that was my little bar gig for this weekend. It ain't much but at least it's free beer and a meal, and a long commute. I sort of enjoyed it. Until next time, thanks for looking!


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff