4th of July gigs

[Groovekiller]

I'm playing smaller and smaller gigs on the 4th. Last year it was a dixieland trio - Banjo, trumpet, and me on clarinet/bass sax.

This year it was a little bigger - piano, bass, and drums with two horns, a cornet/trumpet player and me on clarinet, soprillo, alto, tenor, and bass saxes. The leader wrote charts, the players were all very good, and the gig was inside! A plus in Florida.

I got to play the piccolo part on Stars and Stripes on soprillo.

 

[AGaston]

all I did was a community band concert, 13 numbers....good crowd, and the band did a really nice job. I was glad when it was over though, lol.

 

[Al Stevens]

I stopped accepting July 4th outdoor gigs a few years back. Or any other outdoor gigs in the Summer except for the infrequent community band in the park concert. This is Florida. Florida + July + outdoors = misery.

 

[AGaston]

I know that's right, this last one I did was indoors with AC, the last outdoor one in a park amphitheatre I did was killer, never again. Texas+July+outdoors=near death experience.

I call it sweat & blow.....even with a portable Walmart fan powered by 9 D cell's & a ice water mist sprayer. the humidity here with 104 degree temp would wilt a lizard.

 

[Gandalfe]

We did an evening in the park and our temps are usually much better than that in Texas and Florida. Still until the sun went behind the clouds we were sweating bullets (near 80 in the sun, I know cool temps for most of the southern states). But we like taking care of the city who adopted us.

I did however draw the line at playing on a parade trailer the following week. That's just crazy.

 

[robertsax]

A bit tardy with this, but:

I played with the Golden West Pops at the Huntington Beach (Surf City), CA pier on the 4th. We're a 40 piece (+ or -) wind ensemble and our stage was a converted flat bed trailer with an overhang. Getting on and off that stage had to be a very orderly process or we never would have made it. If the conductor took one step backward, she would have fallen to the ground about 10 feet below. It all went very well and we managed to get out of there at the end of the concert before it became hopelessly gridlocked.