|
|
I'm up early for a run but I can only
do about thirty minutes. I'm tired. While I was out
for my run I am going down this rural road along side a
lake of some kind and I start hearing clip-clop, clip-clop.
I turn around to see a horse pulling a wagon with two, what
I assume to be, Amish men on it. I move over so they can
get by and they wave hello as they pass by. Pretty amazing
when this is how everyone lived a few hundred years ago.
I get back to the hotel, shower, and find everyone up and
in the breakfast room. Good way to start the day.
By 11 am we are loaded up and on our way back to Laurie's
parents' house in Plainfield, Illinois. We are staying
here for the night. Their house is about forty-five minutes
away from the club and we get a chance to be in a home for
one night. This also saves us a night of hotel expense.
Bud and Rita, Laurie's parents, live in a nice ranch
style house with two floors and a basement. Every house
east of the Mississippi has a basement seems like. Their
house is on an acre of land and in the back of the lot is
a pond. It is very pretty and very relaxing to be here.
It is too bad we will not be staying too long this time.
We get dressed for the performance and we all load up in
Big Mama for the ride to the club at around 5 pm. The show
is at 8 pm. Not only is the band in Big Mama but we also
have on board Bud, Rita, Simone (a great band friend), and
my sweetheart, Susan, who has flown in from California to
join the tour. Yay! It is good to see her and reunite with
her. She is also such a big help with the selling of LMB
product. Her nick name is "Merch" Girl. I'm such
a lucky man.
We get to the club and load in our equipment. We set up
and Mike, the sound man, gets us happening pretty fast.
The electrical in the club seems a little hinky. Laurie's
amp is making an awful buzz, but she just works around it
after having tried several solutions. The room fills up
to a little more than half with some of the attendees being
Laurie's extended family, high school classmates,
and close friends. Brendan, a good band friend, is there
and it is always good to see him.
We start our first set and right at the end of our third
song where we do this big finish my speaker cabinets stop
working. Quickly I eliminate my pedal board and wireless
transmitter and switch to a cord going directly in the amp.
No luck they are still not working but the amp is on and
the direct box is working as I can hear my bass in the house
system. So to keep from slowing down the show, I ask Mike
to put the bass in the monitor mix and try to signal him
that my speaker cabs are down. He puts the bass in the monitors
and after a bar or two of the next song he gets the idea
and adds more of the bass to the house mix. I got to say,
I thought the bass sounded pretty awesome for the rest of
the set. Hmm. Maybe some day I can leave my bass cabs at
home. When the set ends I check the amp and cabinets. I
shut off the amp, wiggle the speaker cords, turn the amp
back on, and they are working again. Who can say what happened.
I can't. Maybe it was the hinky electrical. I then
put everything back the way it was and run off to talk to
Mike about what happened and let him know he'll need
to make adjustments for the second set.
It was nice to meet and talk with Laurie's family,
friends, and even some band fans on the break. I especially
liked meeting Rick Waters, Laurie's step-brother.
Nice people are always a joy to be around. During our second
set we play 'Girls With Guitars' and Bud had
brought along some blow up guitars that he gave to some
of the ladies at the club. They all got up and did a dance
while we played. Leave it to Bud. You never know what he's
going to come up with. By the end of the night everyone
seems to have had a good time and I think the club owner
was pleased with the turn out we supplied him for the night.
Hope we can play in the Chicago area again real soon.
We all load up the van and then load into the van for the
forty-five minute drive back to Bud and Rita's house.
We all get a snack and then off to bed. We have a 5 hour
drive to play an outdoor show at 5:15 pm in Quincy, Illinois.
|
