It was 95° at load-in on Philpott Lake yesterday afternoon for the
Concert By Canoes show. We were playing on a boat dock, completely exposed. Being the old soldier I am, I'd had the foresight to pack not only lots of water and nutrition, but some SPF 60 in an aerosol spray, and polarized sunglasses like they give you after eye surgery.
When I got there, Josh was already setting up.
"Dude, we're gonna' cook out here tonight....are you ready?!" I figured he wasn't really expecting me to comment either way, so I just got to work rolling my stuff out this gangway. We've got a running joke about how many times Josh ends up in whatever body of water we happen to be playing near. Doesn't matter... duckponds, kiddie pools, rivers, streams, lakes, and a chemical toilet once. It's Josh... just expect it. Have your phone ready to record. I'm thinking to myself...
"This is too easy... we're surrounded by water... there's no way he can miss!" 
But the show went great. We all got loaded in and set up. It was a lot harder than usual getting the sound right out on that floating dock... all kind of weird resonance. Plus we were playing around one large diaphragm condenser. (I don't know why) When you play there, because there are also folks watching/listening from the shore, we had to project the sound 360°... not only in front, but behind us, and to the sides. That's tricky. I ran my Mesa D-800 and pair of Bag End S15 X-D's for the stage, and patched the DI to the house mains. Let me tell you the critical flaw here. That rig is on a casterboard. When boats come in and dump their throttle off, there's sometimes a pretty sizable wake. Imagine a pair of Baggie 15's and a Mesa amp rolling into a lake, while hooked to a scrawny bass player holding an Alembic bass. Let that soak in. Yeah... I shoulda' left the casterboard in the car.
It was great having the whole band together too. Seems like we always have someone out. We were joined by guest resonator guitarist Ernie Power for the full-on 6-piece effect, and we pounded out two good sets for the Canoe Crowd.
Oh, then at the finale', Josh did a back flip offa' one of the mains, into the lake. None of us were surprised. The Park Rangers were less amused.
*There was a guy there with a humongous camera taking pictures for the event all night, and he promised to send us some... meantime, here's my little pictorial diary. I had a good time playing last night, and I really needed one. It's been a rough patch lately. Felt good to cut loose and play.
