It's mid July so it's time for my annual main thread gig report! (applause)
Midnight Radio played our annual pontoon gig yesterday (July 15, 2017) and couldn't have asked for a better day to do it; 93°F, mostly sunny, with a bit of a breeze. This is the third time I've played this particular event and it's the band's 7th and I'm already looking forward to playing it again next year! Here's the link to my 2016 check in. And here's the link to the very short, rainy, 2015 check-in.
First things first; the drive:
It's a quick 35 minutes on I-94 to my BL's house where we're meeting up prior to heading over to our load-in location. I've already filled my cooler with three big bottles of Cool Blue Gatorade in anticipation of some cramping.
Not much to talk about at the BL's house other than loading up some drums in the trailer and then we're off again. Another 15 minutes to our host house to load in.
I'm re-using last year's picture to show the load-in. It's not easy and we usually have 3-4 young men to assist but not this year. Just our host and one friend who seem a little less than enthused to carry the big stuff. This will kill me during load out but more on that in a bit...
The pontoon is a cozy affair but works perfectly for our trio. We run our entire setup off a single Honda generator but have a second one as a backup just in case. Once we're loaded and set up, our host brings us some food from the corresponding picnic that's happening as part of the day's events. This year we have a brisket sandwich, some really good potato salad, some chips, watermelon, and cookies. It goes great with my first bottle of Gatorade.
As we were going to be on the water for 5 hours and it was hot and sunny, I made sure to apply plenty of sunscreen. I didn't want to get burned!
After a final bio-break to make sure you could make it 5 hours without another, we hop on the pontoon, grab anything that can move to hold it in place, and our host motors us out into position in the middle of the lake on a shallow sandbar. Here we are being escorted by the local boat dealer who owns our stage pontoon and sponsors us.
And here's what's awaiting us as we get moved into position.
Now, it was a bit breezier in the middle of the lake and while we do use stilts for stability, we were feeling a lot of movement while we started playing. So while it may look like I'm showboating a bit with some true RAWKstar® poses, rest assured, I'm just trying to keep my mic stand from tipping over. It proved to be a battle that almost defeated me. You'll also notice, we finally convinced our BL to ditch the "Fool #1, #2, and #3" tshirts this year. Thankfully. (wearing the same shorts however!
)
Playing my Fender Pawn Shop Reverse Jaguar, freshly strung with a set of DR DDT 50-110 strings courtesy of @SLaPiNFuNK which sound massive on this bass. I've ordered a couple more sets so look out for those!
My normal stage rig (TC RH750 - RS212) is tucked behind the PA tower.
I'll be back with some candids of the actual gig. Thanks for reading!
Midnight Radio played our annual pontoon gig yesterday (July 15, 2017) and couldn't have asked for a better day to do it; 93°F, mostly sunny, with a bit of a breeze. This is the third time I've played this particular event and it's the band's 7th and I'm already looking forward to playing it again next year! Here's the link to my 2016 check in. And here's the link to the very short, rainy, 2015 check-in.
First things first; the drive:
It's a quick 35 minutes on I-94 to my BL's house where we're meeting up prior to heading over to our load-in location. I've already filled my cooler with three big bottles of Cool Blue Gatorade in anticipation of some cramping.
Not much to talk about at the BL's house other than loading up some drums in the trailer and then we're off again. Another 15 minutes to our host house to load in.
I'm re-using last year's picture to show the load-in. It's not easy and we usually have 3-4 young men to assist but not this year. Just our host and one friend who seem a little less than enthused to carry the big stuff. This will kill me during load out but more on that in a bit...
The pontoon is a cozy affair but works perfectly for our trio. We run our entire setup off a single Honda generator but have a second one as a backup just in case. Once we're loaded and set up, our host brings us some food from the corresponding picnic that's happening as part of the day's events. This year we have a brisket sandwich, some really good potato salad, some chips, watermelon, and cookies. It goes great with my first bottle of Gatorade.
As we were going to be on the water for 5 hours and it was hot and sunny, I made sure to apply plenty of sunscreen. I didn't want to get burned!
After a final bio-break to make sure you could make it 5 hours without another, we hop on the pontoon, grab anything that can move to hold it in place, and our host motors us out into position in the middle of the lake on a shallow sandbar. Here we are being escorted by the local boat dealer who owns our stage pontoon and sponsors us.
And here's what's awaiting us as we get moved into position.
Now, it was a bit breezier in the middle of the lake and while we do use stilts for stability, we were feeling a lot of movement while we started playing. So while it may look like I'm showboating a bit with some true RAWKstar® poses, rest assured, I'm just trying to keep my mic stand from tipping over. It proved to be a battle that almost defeated me. You'll also notice, we finally convinced our BL to ditch the "Fool #1, #2, and #3" tshirts this year. Thankfully. (wearing the same shorts however!
)Playing my Fender Pawn Shop Reverse Jaguar, freshly strung with a set of DR DDT 50-110 strings courtesy of @SLaPiNFuNK which sound massive on this bass. I've ordered a couple more sets so look out for those!
My normal stage rig (TC RH750 - RS212) is tucked behind the PA tower.I'll be back with some candids of the actual gig. Thanks for reading!
