Nixdad with The Fab 8, Shelton Park, Claremont, 5/3/19

Hi Everyone -
It was great to get out and play again!


We're grateful the city of Claremont hired us to perform the first date of their successful "Friday Nights Live" concert series which runs May through October.

Every Friday night 4 bands perform within a few blocks of each other in the downtown area, making this a very fun evening for all who choose to attend (typically 1,000-2,000 people on any given Friday night.) Claremont is a nice So Cal town famous for its institutions of higher learning (otherwise known as the Claremont Colleges: The Claremont Colleges) There are plenty of restaurants and goodie shops in the downtown area, so there is no shortage of things to do (and eat.) This year's events begin on May 3rd, and will end on October 25th.

Here's a picture someone posted on Facebook from one of the stores downtown:

Although only 2 of the 4 locations are listed on the board above, the Village Square and Shelton Park are the 2 primary locations for FNL (we'll close out the FNL series on October 25 in the Village Square.) Our keyboard player/vocalis Matt is also in The Dogs (fantastic deep album cut band,) and guitarists/vocalists Martie, Hai and Pat make up the acoustic trio Dynamite Dawson (killer CSN and much more,) both groups of which will be performing in the weeks ahead.

It's been 6 months since our last gig in early November, and we couldn't have picked a more beautiful day to come out of hibernation. The weather during the day peaked at about 80 degrees, and skies were clear and blue.

Doug supervises as we're finalizing set up:

A close up of Doug's cool shirt:


Hai, Martie & Dale. Although we're facing west into the sun during set up and as we start the gig, the glare only lasts a short time. Temps were great this year, but a few years ago it was over 100 degrees with no wind when we did this same gig. We were thankful for the beautiful conditions.


This is Bob Fagg. He and his wife Sonja Stump are unofficially "Mr. & Mrs. Claremont," and are the primary reason we get hired every year. Since my bandmates are in multiple bands, overall they collectively book all of the seminal bands associated with The F8 for about 25 events annually. We're truly grateful.

His wife Sonja Stump, who is also a professional photographer:


It's also graduation time for the Claremont Colleges. While we were setting up, 4 attractive students took turns taking photographs of each other under this (redbud?) tree just adjacent to the stage:

It certainly enhanced the scenery and made set up a bit more entertaining. Here are the students reviewing their photos:


A shot of the stage, pre-performance:

We had a nice crowd for this gig, probably about 250 people overall. A few pre-performance shots:



This is a great event for all ages. This is John Debellis (in the F8 shirt,) a high school classmate of mine who brought his family:


Doug's stage with the newly mounted F8 drumhead and Beatles cartoon heads:


We added "Hello Goodbye" & "I'll Be Back Again" to our setlist this week, and performed several other tunes we had not played in a few years including "I Should Have Known Better" & "I Feel Fine." We performed for 3 hours with 2 breaks. "A Day In the Life," "I Want to Hold Your Hand," "She Loves You," "Penny Lane," "Hey Jude" are consistent crowd favorites, and we ended the evening with "With a Little Help From My Friends" as usual.

Luckily a few live shots just showed up on Facebook. Here's Martie Echito, who is also responsible for our sound. Martie is one of those multi-instrumentalist/songwriter guys with a HUGE amount of talent and absolutely no ego. He's always made a living as a musician, and has performed with Stephen Stills and countless others through the decades. Several of his songs have appeared on movie soundtracks and in various places. I'm happy to know him and am extremely lucky to have the opportunity to perform with him. He's also in the process of mixing our live CD and promo video (which will be available soon):


And finally, a shot of the entire band:


Overall, it was a fun night and featured several excellent performances. The crowd enjoyed the music, and we enjoyed them right back (we especially appreciated the more than $200 in tips.) A few songs were a little shaky (instrumentally) knocking off 6 months of rust, but the guys sang great. I'm so fortunate to be in a band with guys that have so much talent.

All for now. Our next gig is not until mid-June (and we have 5 more after that,) so hopefully we can add more dates.

Until next time, keep posting those gig reports!

Nixdad

 

Thanks Tony. Yep, the hat is here to stay! At this point we have 4 more gigs this summer, and 2 in the fall. I'm still looking for other opportunities (and some indoor venues) where we can play beyond October.

Hey Grant! Thanks for your kind compliments, as they are always appreciated. I'm extremely fortunate to be playing with these guys, and it's especially fun when it's evident the audience is enjoying the music as much as we do.
I know the Claremont Voodoo Society has been around for a number of years - I need to make time to see them.

BTW - do the Goat Hill Gamblers have a website? I was looking for upcoming dates to make plans and get out and see you guys soon as well, but could not find one.

Thanks, @Torrente Cro. You never know what the future may hold!

Thanks @garp! It's definitely a nice town, and they appreciate good music. The FNL concept has done well, and Claremont has been a model for other cities of how to do it right. They changed the artwork this year - I agree it looks pretty cool.

Thank you, Dan. Yep, the new Ric will make it's debut soon. The neck requires some adjustment, so it's time for me to adjust the truss rods and add a bit of relief to eliminate some buzz. I didn't have time to do it before this gig, but it will get done before our next gig in about a month.
I wish you lived closer as well! However, if all goes well our CD should be available within the next month, so we should have more music available soon.

Hey Cliff!
I agree it is a nice little park. We had the largest crowd we've ever had at that location this time around, so hopefully it will continue to grow from there. We still appreciate the video you shot of us the first time we performed there a few years back!

We hope to see you soon as well!

Hi Mark -
Thanks very much, and it would be great to meet you. About 1/2 our gigs are private gigs this year, but we will be performing for the City of Glendora's Summer Concert Series on Sunday, July 7th at Finkbiner Park if you find yourself in town. If you can't make one of my gigs, still let us know if you'll be in town to see one of our other Talkbass brethren!

Here is the Glendora schedule:
June 23 - The Answer - Classic Rock
June 30 - Los Angeles Sheriff's Concert Band - Patriotic
July 7 - The Fab 8 - Beatles Acoustic
July 14 - Doo Wah Riders - Country
July 21 - Raymond Michael - Elvis Tribute
July 28 - Night Owl Jazz Orchestra - Miller,Basie,Sinatra and Ella
August 4 - The Who Experience - A Who Tribute

It looks like Gary @Holdsg will be performing for the same series on August 4th!

Chris

 

Thanks Tony. The white Ric will probably make it's debut at our next public gig on July 7. I'm looking forward to it!

Thanks Ron, an will do!

Thanks Grant. I'm looking forward to catching you guys sometime this year.
Did Original Mike's fizzle out?

Thanks Gary - looking forward to seeing you guys!

Thanks Jimmy!

 

Thanks Nate!

Yeah, that's a bummer - what a great patio.

But poopy happens to all of us. I'm sure you remember the annoying fountains that were always on at The Shoppes at Chino Hills stage area where you saw us a few times (fun for kids, sucked for anyone who came to see the band.) Before our final gig there last year an audience member asked them to please shut off the fountains so she could hear the band. They complied, which was great for everyone in the audience (and great for us to not have to compete with the noise.) However, a shopper who brought their kids to play in the fountain complained about the fountains being off. Because we were performing, we got blamed. We were also at the top of their pay scale, so we simply were not invited back this year. Oh well.