Summer’s gone, mostly. I really don’t know where it went. When I last left you in August I was telling you about the Sutter Creek Jug Band festival my old friends (either connotation as usual) and I were prepping to play. The tour, as I am want to call it, included a couple of pick up trips to the airport and a week of rehearsals.
Being an in demand semi amateur bass player my tour included another gig with a bluegrass band of other old friends (same note) at a party in Portola Valley the following week. This gig would require a few rehearsals after the Sutter Creek festival. Now I’m really on tour.
The first week of rehearsals was a back breaker from a driving standpoint. I have been retired for over 6 years now. For 37 years I commuted most days from Mountain View to my work in Menlo Park. As you would expect that commute got harder and more congested year on year but at the time I retired it was still drivable most of the time. Continuing to digress, as I’m prone to do, what changed on that commute after I retired was Facebook. The evil empire bought up all the land and buildings on the east side of 101 from University Ave to Woodside Rd.
As I have heard it said many times, I told you that so I could tell you this. Our rehearsals for the tour were in San Carlos and daily we had to commute from Mountain View. We had another player who had to make that commute from Concord for the entire week. I have two (there is always two) more things to add on this. One is that driving in traffic makes me very cranky and secondly I’m old or at least older.
For a perspective, my GPS tells me at 10:00 PM (little traffic) that the drive takes 25 minutes. The actual drive time each morning from Mountain View to San Carlos averaged about 50 minutes. Not too bad you might say. However the return trip each day averaged about 90 minutes with the worst case scenario on two of the days, taking over two hours. You don’t want to even imagine my old man crankiness. I was saying unprintable things about Facebook and Silicon Valley the entire week. I wont bore you with our bandmate’s Concord trips.
The good news is that once we were there and playing music the world got good again. We worked up a very tight set of music, eclectic as it was. Remember last month I told you “it was no part of nothing” but other than that it was, in my humble opinion very good.
As we were literally land locked we spent 3 or 4 hours a day playing music with friends. No complaining there. Lunching at a local pub in walking distance. If I remember correctly there was tequila involved as well.
On Saturday the day of the Sutter Creek gig the limo (my Prius) left about 1:00. Being the limo driver as well, I wanted to get to Sutter Creek early enough to relax before our 6:00 set. The GPS indicated 2:45 minute drive. It took 3:15. Again keeping with the trend, the going was relatively easy.
We played our set and all the rehearsal paid off. We were good and the audience responded as such. Tight would be an apt description. We had a ball playing in front of an enthusiastic crowd. Also we got to stay and grab a couple of sets of the acts following but then as it was starting to get dark the limo headed for home.
As the limo driver I made a very interesting discovery, CalTrans Shuts down highways on Saturday nights for MAJOR road repairs. This means multiple lanes get blocked on I-5 and on I-580. The trip home took 5½ hours. Talk about a cranky old man.
The big question for me is, was it worth it, an hour set and many hours of rehearsing with friends vs all the driving aggravation? I hafta say yeah. I’d sign up for it next year in a heartbeat…as long as the tequila was still involved.
The bluegrass portion of my tour was a cakewalk compared to the previous week. Yeah sure there was some driving but not in daytime hours until the Saturday of the gig. There was the usual casual gig arguing over PA equipment and set list but it all came together well. The backyard gig also had tacos but no beer or tequila was offered to the band.!! Ah… I’d do that one again too.
That’s the story of my summer tour. I’m still chasing the iconic styles of Cameron Crowe, Ben Fong Torres or Hunter Thompson but I’m a young man, I’ll get it eventually…wait I’m not a young man. I already told you that.
Also apologies to Cormac McCarthy and Coen Brothers for stealing the title.
