Monday, July 16th gig at The Palms

Above: The Lounge at about 8:30, the calm before the storm...

Wow. What a great night. I knew it would be, after the pressure of last Monday's live CD recording night. The guys were all loose and ready to seriously throw down tonight just for pure fun. I shot a ton of pics, and have a mess of peeps to cite, but this is gonna be a short initial blog post tonight, 'cuz my Niece April and I just got back late Sunday night from Florida, where we went Saturday to bring my Mom here to Vegas to the nursing home where I'd transferred my Dad about 6 weeks ago (more about that later; I am now through with Florida!). We are both so tired. We got her admitted at about 11 p.m. Sunday night (she's been hospitalized in Florida since April 3rd and too sick to travel till now). And, now I gotta get right back up around 8 a.m. to take Cheryl to McCarran for her business trip to Baton Rouge and then go back over to the nursing home to check on Ma and Pa. So, I'll post just a bit ('cuz I know I've spoiled y'all), but I gotta get some rest.


Huge props to Nate Kimball for subbing for Nathan Tanouye tonight. Click his name to read my prior blog post about my much-loved "other son." Nate stepped up and delivered just like he'd been with the band all along. That is a major accomplishment. Not possible to overstate it.

Props also to our regular sub Bad Boy sax Eric Tewalt filling in for Jerry Merra tonight.

The elegant Clint and Kelly came to hang tonight, and stayed with us all the way.

Clint got up during the second show and did his Jarreau-quality scat soloing on "San Diego." Awesome, Clint. Thank you.

Below: My beautiful and gracious dude magnet Zen Niece April and Michael. Oh, yeah!

The crowd is lovin' Michael Grimm more and more with every passing week. Deservedly so. Clint and Kelly sure dug him. Astonishing talent, our Michael.

BTW- April, I don't know what I'd have done without you these past few weeks. We sure are happy to have you here.

Below: Santa Fe regular Dustin got remanded to the "Seat of Funk" tonight during the second show, LOL!

OK, last shot for now. Much more tomorrow. Below: I pulled this shot up in iPhoto, and April said "OK, I think that's a good shot for me to go to sleep on."

More to come, dear friends.

9:15 a.m., BACK UP AND AT IT

OK, I got me a 55 gallon drum of Starbucks. Just dropped The Empress of QA off at the airport. Tim Lienhard and I were talkin' last night about how cool it'd be if the band could just set up mic'd and patched for live recording every night. Wouldn't be long before we'd have tons of killer CD material, given the way Santa Fe routinely throws down like they did last night. It'd be a lot of extra work. Setting up and balancing for recording is a lot more involved than simply setting up for live performance. Still, there are so many recurrent magic moments of dazzling, passionate brilliance coming off that stage night after night after night. Be nice to capture all that.

Below: some more random pics before heading out to the nursing home.

Photo note: it continues to gripe me to no end that I can't get shots of Gabriel or Pepe (or the Fat City horns, for that matter) because of the inadequate lighting. I swear, I wanna go to Sam Ash and buy a bunch of my own parcans and put 'em up myself to cover those areas of the stage.

End of rant.

Below, our bro' Dave Siefkes does a bit of Photoshop wizardry on some of my Fat City Horns shots (click the pic to enlarge).

Below: Santa Fe regular Lorraine, with Kye from the Barry Manilow show.


Above: Right to left, Jerry, venerable keyboardist Billy Moran, and guitarist Mark Speights. As noted by Steve Tuminello:

Billy is considered by most musicians to be one of the finest keyboard players in town with an incredible left hand bass line, great chord changes and lightning fast jazz runs. He not only plays but sings extremely well. The vocals are shared by guitarist Mark Speights who has worked with Little Anthony as well as Chuck Mangione. Mark plays in a smooth jazz style reminiscent of Wes Montgomery or Earl Klugh.

Billy and Mark appear at the Top of the World Restaurant at the Stratosphere Tower.

Below, The Sons are coming to Vegas in September. Save the dates. Oh, yeah!

CODA

Below: Me and Ma and April at the Orlando airport Sunday. First time she'd been out in the world since April 3rd. We left the house at 5:15 a.m. Saturday, and brought her back here Sunday night. All of our flights were late. Jeesh, summer travel in the southeast.

Above, my Pop on the phone yesterday with my Sister (April's Mom). He just talks a bunch of no-memory gibberish, but, still, it's good. I know they're still gonna run me ragged, but it'll be much better with both of them here. And, Ma wants to hear the band! LOL, we'll wheel her up and put her in The Seat of Funk.