Susan and I are up at 7 am. She goes for a walk. I go
for a run. Back at the house after our walk and run everyone
is starting to come around. It's a beautiful day
although it is a bit muggy. It is nice not to be in a
big hurry this morning. I get to play my ukulele for a
while, Susan gets her nails looked after, and Laurie and
Lisa tend to some errands before we head out to Pekin.
We get off to Pekin about mid-day which will take only
2 ½ hours. This is nice after our long drives over
the last two days. We get to Pekin and check in at the
Concorde Inn and head over to the club. We get to the
club and Kevin, the soundman, is getting set up and we
are greeted by Scott Gregory, the president of the River
City Blues Society. Scott and Kevin are really nice guys
and they make us feel really welcome.
Goodfellas is a large place with two full bars, a great
kitchen, lots of arcade games, and a nice stage. This
is an improvement over last year as we played at the Pekin
Dome facility in a cinder block meeting hall with no bar,
no kitchen, and no stage. As we are doing sound check
we order some food. Kevin gets us tweaked in and we sit
down to enjoy our food. It is about 5 pm and we play at
7 pm. We get back to the hotel, change, and warm up before
the show.
Back at Goodfellas there is a pretty good crowd for a
Thursday night. Bud and Rita have come from Plainfield.
Our friends who we call the 'Traveling Blues Babes', Simone,
Bobby, and Carolyn, are there. Laurie's former college
roommate and husband, Kelly and Brian, are present and
Laurie's former track coach from Plainfield, Kathy Kasmar
is there. In attendance are also the stalwart River City
Blues Society members and their friends. This is a fun
bunch that has gathered and we are in for a good time.
We play until 10 pm which is 3 hours so we are doing two
75 minute sets. All is going well and the response is
good from the audience but we, in the band, feel that
the sound is muddy and that the lyrics are not being heard.
Laurie is trying to find a balance between her vocals
and guitar and I turn my bass down to cut down on the
noise coming from the stage. As I play, I am using what
I hear coming out of the mains as my reference monitor
and not my stage amp. This is tricky and makes getting
into the groove harder but when I know everyone is having
difficulty hearing I try to bring myself down to help
and then I rely upon the sound man to give the audience
what they need to enjoy the music. I've had to do
it before and I will probably have to do it again. Bass
frequencies can make it hard to hear mid range and high
frequency. They can be so dominant. The only other thing
that was a bit annoying was to get to the kitchen from
the main bar you had to walk in front of the band on the
dance floor. This was distracting as the wait staff walked
back and forth in between the audience and the band. I
know if I was being distracted then others probable were
being distracted also.
The evening goes well and we meet a lot of good people
here in Pekin. We say our good byes to the all our good
friends and family here in Illinois and head back to the
hotel for some rest. Tomorrow we are in St. Paul, Minnesota
at Wilebski's Blues Saloon which is about an eight
hour drive from Pekin. See you in Minnesota.
