Anyway, New Year's Eve 2009! The band worked long and hard in preparation for this one, unveiling a few firsts for us: 1. A 3-set NYE show, 2. An acoustic set, and 3. Adding a horn section. Lots and lots of rehearsals, trying ideas, scrapping ideas, finalizing songlists, practice practice practice. No shows for six weeks and cooped up in the rehearsal room...we were ready to get back on stage!
The adventure began the day before New Year's eve. We set out to Davenport a day early to begin the extensive load-in, set up and soundcheck process. This was a genius idea by Jordan, as we got the 3 hour drive and half the work done the day before show. Nice.
It took awhile to get out of town, as we had to pick up both our horn players and fill the squishy tires of our van that had been hibernating for 6 weeks. Add in a little bit of snow, and our 5:30 load time turned into about 7pm. I loathe being late, but given that we were a whole day early to begin with, I kept my bitching to a minimum.
We got the gear loaded and partially set up, and had a very productive rehearsal with the horn section. Then back to the hotel for some pizza and beer, and an early bedtime for the 11am continuation of the set-up fun!Musicians being coherent at
11am is never an easy task, but we were all pumped for the show and in good spirits. Today's work consisted of the electric and acoustic soundchecks, setting up the entire light rig, and not to mention, blowing up 150 balloons. This is where we thought our horn players with their super studly lungs would come in handy. They did blow up a commendable number of balloons, but alas, our crown jewel, the $8, three foot diameter New Year's balloon, met an untimely death at the hands of our trumpet player, Jerry. D'OH!
The work took us well into the afternoon, but we had time for a run back to the hotel for a short rest, showers, etc. At this point, I got a text message that the show was sold out in advance, and I became too excited for a nap. Boo-yeah!!
Back to the venue for a take-out dinner from the restaurant downstairs, and then showtime was upon us! The acoustic set was first, and our acoustic soundcheck was the very last thing we had done in the setup process. What an unpleasant surprise, then, when we took the stage with the crowd gathered around in anticipation, and my acoustic bass did not have any sound. A few minutes of troubleshooting that felt like an eternity, a bad cable was replaced, and on with the show!
The acoustic set was a ton of fun. We played a few reworked versions of FGC staples, including Ready Fire Aim, One Eye Dreaming, and The Charmer, giving them what I like to call the "Layla" treatment. We also unveiled a bunch of new covers, and everything went over really well. The set was a great way to ease in to a long night of music.The second set was electric and took us until 11:30pm. Given that we hadn't played as a band in 6 weeks, I was very surprised as to how gelled everything felt and how comfortable all the tempos were. The crowd was raging from beat one, and it felt great to be back! The horn players joined us for the last few tunes of the set. I especially liked their contribution to our original tune, "A Misdemeanor's Worth."
The third set began right at midnight. I think this was our most accurate New Year's countdown yet, synced to the second with a satellite-monitored cell phone clock. Our balloon helpers launched all the balloons into the crowd as we fell into Auld Lang Syne, and then we busted into "Byron's Got the Time."
Everything went smoothly for about the first 30 seconds of 2010, but then I decided to kick a balloon off stage mid-song and my shoe went flying into the crowd. And it wasn't just any shoe. It was a nice shoe that I grudgingly bought just for the show so I wouldn't be wearing sneakers with my nice outfit, and I had in the back of my mind that I would probably return the pair to the store. So it became quite the crisis that my shoe was no longer on my foot, and instead was down in the photo pit, just inches away from being sucked into the mass of people. I then proceeded to
blow the tune we were playing, while simultaneously blowing all attempts at communication with our photographer Chuck, who apparently thought me pointing at my bare foot meant that I wanted more balloons to kick. I finally retrieved my shoe, and the rest of the set went swimmingly, with lots more horn fun, including the Phish cover, "Julius," which I was convinced the crowd would go apeshit over, and indeed they did. By the end of the show, my hands felt like jelly having not played that intense of a show in so long, and I was hurting pretty bad by the time we got to our double encore of "Late in the Evening" and "Another Before I Go."
After the show, we left all our gear set up (a New Year's tradition), and hit a friend's party, followed by more latenight fun at our hotel.
The next day went in slow motion, with a lazy check-out of the hotel, a 2pm "breakfast" at the Village Inn, tearing down and loading out the gear, a 3 hour drive home, and unloading all our gear once again.
An incredible way to end 2009 and start 2010. Thanks to all involved in making it happen!
