Gig Report - Joebarnes with Whiskey Karma at the Byrd Feb 2 2018

My band decided to take December off and our January gig got pushed out to April for various reasons, so we had a 2 month break between our last gig and this show. Our venue for the evening was the (in)famous Byrd at the Flamingo Hotel in Surrey. The Byrd used to be a strip club for many, many years. Recently, the land the Flamingo hotel sits on was sold to a developer who plans to tear everything down and put up... I’m guessing condo’s.

The development is a few years away, so the developer decided to allow a local production company to take over the running of the 3 venues on the complex to help bring back live music to Surrey, my home town. There are practically no venues in Surrey that have live music, and the ones that do; don’t support original music. Typically, if you want to play, you’re doing the short commute into Vancouver.

The Byrd used to have a large sort of oval dance stage (yes, of course, complete with pole) in the middle of the room. The stage was ripped out in a day, a new one started at one end of the room, and with some paint and elbow grease, the venue changed from the “Byrd Exotic Showlounge” to the “Byrd Sonic Showlounge” (I see what they did there... save money on signage)


Becca with our band poster up at the Byrd

We had a hiccup in terms of musicians over Christmas, our old lead guitarist John decided to get married, and the wedding planning was going to interfere with his availability, so he chose to step away. I messaged an old friend of mine who had recently been working as a musician on the cruise lines to see if he knew of anybody interested in playing Modern Country. To my surprise, he jumped at the opportunity so we added Mike on lead guitar and lap steel, which definitely gives us something extra to our sound.


Becca Chelsea and Aaron with the always important Pre-Gig selfie

We were headlining the Byrd for the night, so we arrived at 6pm load in, had a long sound check. the sound guy was amazing – he really made every band sound their absolute best. He used to do the sound for the Rio Theatre in Vancouver and it was a pleasure to work with an absolute professional.


Here is the band for sound check. I think they're trying to get vocal levels to match.

Liquor and beers were cheap at $5 a drink, or $8 for a double, so lots of people were enjoying the bar for the evening. Someone mentioned they have mirrors on the ceiling and wondered if they had pink champagne on ice. I don’t know about the pink champagne, but they did have a signature cocktail called the "white trash spritzer," which was half white wine, and half growers cider. We asked for our signature "Whiskey Karma" drink on the menu, but the bar wasn't able to get it together, but they did let us set up our merch table right by the bar - so that was helpful.

Our newest merch - T-shirts and Beer Coozies - T-shirts in 4 colours as per a request from the women in the band. The argument was everyone has black t-shirts and we needed some colour - can't say I disagree with them.

We sat in to listen to the other 3 bands before getting our call on stage at right around 11:00pm. I’m not sure if it was the later start, or just an off night, but I swear I hit more wrong notes than right ones for the first few songs lol. Finally got my act together for the second half of the show. We played mostly originals with a few covers thrown in throughout the set to keep people interested.


Becca appears to be saying I want to sing this part

Overall, the band (other than that bass player guy), had a great showing. Mike, despite only hearing many of the songs a few weeks ago, was spot on for the night, and really elevated the band with his performance, so a great outcome from an unexpected need for a replacement band member.


Aaron looks on while Mike makes his lap steel cry and sing


Becca is giving her all on this song


Chelsea and Becca in perfect harmony

We’re starting to fill up our calendar, and have another gig in 3 weeks, and then one in March, and one in April. The promoter advised us he’s putting together a 2 day Country showcase with a bunch of Country bands and would follow up with us for that closer to the May tentative date. Its nice to have people contacting us for gigs instead of banging on doors alone, so we’ll take every show they offer us.

 

I didn't find the ceiling very distracting, but I think my hat kind of cut off the overhead view for me lol. I did notice people on the dance floor from time to time. Thank you for the kind words as well.

 

Its definitely a place with a history. There were a few 'eccentric' people there, which adds to the fun for sure. The mirrors didn't seem to affect the acoustics much, or it may just be the sound guy has everything figured out to compensate.

We're also liking the addition of the lap steel - now to talk him into pedal steel

I will send you a PM shortly with some info in regards to a shirt. Thanks for the request!

 

I agree lap steel adds a bunch to our sound. We have a couple of songs we felt were a bit outside of our genre; lap steel yanks it firmly back into the country realm lol.

Good to know I'm not the only one who has had the old brain fart happen

I have no doubt I can ship outside of Canada. I'll PM you some info.

 

I apologize, but as I'm not the one taking most of the pictures, I unfortunately have to take them as I get them, and that was the size for those pictures I received. Normally, I wouldn't have used such small ones, but that was all that was available for this gig.

I will try to get nice big ones for next time

 

No, you didn't come off as a jerk at all. I actually was disappointed myself that I had to use smaller pics

 

We're Canadian, they'd be tossing Loonies at us. Those hurt more than dollar bills lol.

I always liked reading Basscliff's gig reports and how he puts them together. I'm basically just copying him. I just seem to play bars that don't have food involved, so I know I'm losing prestige points for that.

In regards to being a house band at a strip club - There's Monday Karaoke at a strip club not too far from me - apparently the dancers have preferred songs and singers for their dance sets. I've joked the band needs to branch out into other venues and that may be an option lol.

 

Thanks

 

I will send you a PM with some details pablomago. And we don't have a bill smaller than a $5 in Canada, so technically all our strip clubs are high class joints if we're talking bills being used lol.