Eleven Hours of Music

Just a quick report on a marathon day of music on Saturday. I had two gigs back-to-back - I must be a professional musician :)

The first gig was a holiday party. The basic outlines are pretty normal - nice ballroom at the Sheraton Pentagon City. Great views out towards DC and Virginia. Extensive buffet and open bar. Then there was the host. Rob is an ostensibly extremely wealthy dude who spends most of his time in the Virgin Islands but still has connections back here. He cuts quite a figure at these parties - tuxedo, spats, a hairstyle that could be described as the Donald Trump look with a ponytail. Quite a dude. And he has interesting musical requests: he always wants a sing-along of corny traditional songs (Oh Susanna, Yankee Doodle, and such) as well as a medley of the Armed Services songs. Last year we played the service songs; this year they went with a recorded version. Plus, Rob has a hearing disorder which makes him hypersensitive to loud noise. So he hires live entertainment then spends the whole time shushing the musicians.

Anyway, despite all this, it was a fun gig. A lot of hours, though: we played from 4 to 8:30. I was giving Vicky, the singer of Magnolia Blue, a ride out to the next gig. She met me at Rob's party - sauntered in aroudn 8 PM, ordered a whiskey like she belonged there and got some dessert. With only the tiniest bit of prompting she joined us onstage. The last couple of songs were really nice duets between Vicky and Zac. Then she and I had to skeddadle - we were due out in Ashburn for our next gig, the holiday party at Hardcore Choppers custom motorcycle and hot rod shop. Neil had said the band would be sound checking at 9, but not to worry if we were late - they'd have everything set up for me to plug right into when I got there. I didn't even need an amp, since there'd be a monitor for me.

One thing you have to account for when you get gig instructions from Neil is that generally nothing is accurate. Vicky and I arrived around 9:30. As expected, an Elvis impersonator was performing to fill the band changeover time, but there had been no sound check - in fact, the previous band was still clearing the stage and Magnolia Blue was just getting started setting up. There was no monitor for me. There was nothing set up for me to plug into. The sound man grumbled at having to provide me with a direct  box (a gadget that allows me to connect my keyboard into the PA system), Personally, I consider providing the direct box to be the sound man's responsibility, but every once in a while you run into a sound man who thinks it should be my responsibility. One thing turned out to be accurate - Neil had made good on his promise to bring a keyboard stand (I had one in the car, just in case), but I had to dig it out of a jumble of gear. Oh, and Neil was WASTED. I mean, intoxicated to the point where he'd just stand there and clearly not have the conscious thought power to know what he was doing - or that he should be doing anything at all.

Elvis, wearing an exact replica of the 1974 Dragon jumpsuit

Fortunately, this wasn't anyone's first rodeo and we all know how to pull ourselves together in a chaos situation. I grabbed the amp I had in the car (I always bring one, even when they say I don't need one), got my keyboard set up and successfully negotiated the PA connection with the sound guy. Likewise, everyone else got set up and ready to go. We hit the stage sounding great despite having a semi-comatose Neil at the helm. As soon as we started playing, the go go dancers got up to dance along. A couple of years ago when did this party, the shop was in a different location and the stage setup was a little different, with the dancers on platforms out in the middle of the floor. This time the platforms were right in front of the stage and so I had various women in tight dresses shaking their thang right in my face all night. The girl in the tight black dress and heels would play strictly to the crowd, but her alternate, the petite girl in the black dress and boots, would smile sweetly at the band from time to time - like she was enjoying the experience and was happy to be sharing this good time with us. Awww. Such a wholesome go go dancer.

Monster chopper

My view

Onstage

I should point out that this party was in a motor vehicle shop. So, after ogling the cars outside (a late 60's Buick Riviera, a 1980's slant nose Porsche 911, a Datson 280z, etc.)  you walk in past a jumble of partially disassembled motorcycles into a big, open shop space. The stage was a real stage, but the horns were playing on a platform that was actually some sort of vehicle lift, behind which was a pile of car parts. Most of the main bay had been cleared out for the party (probably the reason so many cars were outside), but a second bay off to the side held an array of works in progress - both choppers and cars, and had a big screen showing UFC Fight Night, for those not into live music and Elvis.

Cars undergoing restoration

Choppers

This was the last gig (at least for now) for Magnolia Blue and we did it with a lot a subs, since a number of the band members had already quit. On drums we had Neil's housemate John (who's not a stranger to our material - he had often played with us at rehearsals once our drummer started getting unreliable). On guitar we had my friend and former (for a little while) Mag Blue guitarist Shawn. Ralph, who played with us for a little while last year, was back on trumpet. And of course as a front man we had zombie Neil.

The amazing thing is that it went really well. Sure, there were times when Neil was supposed to sing but didn't, leaving us to wonder whether to vamp or continue the song. There were times when Neil sang the wrong things, leaving us to wonder whether to follow the song structure or follow what he was singing. Our excellent singer friend Sunny showed up. She came up to sing with us and actually took over for Neil a few times when his processor went into sleep mode. And yet it all held together! Amazing. The crowd, fired up on jello shots, Fireball, cheap beer and trays of Italian food, was up and dancing. A good time was had by all!

At about 1:30AM things wound down. The bathroom had been trashed, and spilled beer was everywhere. I had had a cup of regular coffee before leaving the first party, but the combination of the hours and a couple of beers (one at each party) was starting to take its toll. I loaded my gear out and Vicky and I drove back to Arlington where I dropped her at the Metro stop, despite it being way beyond Metro hours (I simply wasn't a nice enough guy to drive the extra 15 minutes each way to take here all the way home - she caught an Uber the rest of the way). I got home and too wired to sleep, but eventually exhaustion and a little rye whiskey did the trick and I slept like the dead.