Boy oh boy are you guys on a road trip just like Bob and Bing's Road To...movies, except in your case its The Road To Columbus Ohio and a lot of sub-plot twists and turns along the way as well, by the sound of it.Good evening/morning/afternoon Combo Club! It is midnight here in Ohio, but I made sure I had a brain cell or two left from this day to scribe Day 1 of the Columbus Trip to you. I threw out a spoiler a few posts up mentioning that the trip went well, and other than being long (8:00 AM Iowa time to 6:00 PM Ohio time) it was uneventful. Now that doesn't mean the day didn't have a firecracker or two tossed in for good measure, and I'll get to those in a minute. Below are two pics taken, by Mrs. iagtrplyer, as we launched the USS Mercury Marquis. Oh it fit everything I brought, plus Pastor John's travel items and an acoustic guitar. Seriously, there may still be musical gear in that trunk, but we ran out of daylight while unpacking! View attachment 3101470
BTW, John is 6'2" and I'm 7'1". I sometimes use my bass as a bath brush when showering. Just kidding.
View attachment 3101470 View attachment 3101474 I wonder if this how Pink Floyd loaded up for tours?
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Pizza for lunch at a Casey's in Le Roy, IL, and pizza for an afternoon snack at a Marathon gas station in OH. Yeah, we like pizza. East Coast subs in Columbus tonight though. Had "The Big Kahuna" Philly cheese steak and boy, was it good. Giff, it's definitely NOT like a Vegemite sandwich, but I still like Men at Work.
So here's tonight's less-than-happy news: The band's main rhythm guitarist and lead singer of 16 of the 52 songs we're performing on Saturday will be a no-show due to the passing of a good friend of his. He'll be at the funeral at the same time the festival begins, and that threw us a curve ball as we found this out tonight. Greg, the guitarist feels terrible about not playing, but it reminds us all where we set our priorities. So tomorrow we're gonna re-vamp the set list, either taking those pieces out or replacing the lead singer with one of the other group members, but then losing one of the key harmony parts. I'm going to try and help there, but the blend won't be the same. It was a tough way to finish today, but we'll make it work.
John then find out he's going to be losing some festival workers and now has to find replacements two days before this all happens. That's life, but it still makes for added stress. Then on top of it, another parishioner's mother passed away recently and they're holding her funeral on Saturday at...guess what time? 10:00 AM. So he's going to spend extra time at her visitation on Friday to make up for missing the funeral. We're all just hoping no else passes away for the next 48 hours!
Finally, tomorrow's agenda includes revising the music, setting up the rig to see if everything works (ran the Jazz through the Rumble for a few minutes tonight and smiled), and rehearse around 6:00 PM. All I know is I'm pumped to play and can't wait. Day 3, here we come! The final pic below was taken to provide a comparison from the Day 0 shot. Talk to ya tomorrow night.
PS: to Giffro - thanks for the safe well wish in an earlier post. I am getting John to bless the PF-800 before Saturday, but the Rumble may get more action if we have fewer players.
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Sorry to hear about the singer/guitarist failure to launch and the loss of festival staff plus the church members mum passing away. You couldn't easily write a script like that for a movie. At least you guys sound like your eating well along the way loll..pizza, pizza and oh yeah..more pizza. Right about here in my reply i'll insert a well known ditty to put a smile on ya dial...
Mrs. Mike did a good job of the trip pics as well..keep ya feet together too Mike cause I can see the rear wheel between ya legs..man oh man 7'1" and with bowed little legs like that my friend you could be captain of the tunnel ball team loll joking joking.. But what a good lookin' dude you are..Mrs Mike snapped up a killer bargain there.
You 2 fellas look like Jake and Elwood, the real blues brothers ready to take on the Festival when ya get there.
God bless you both you travelling minstrels, and enjoy the trip before coming back home safely to your Combo family, who I am sure are wishing you both a great trip.
It seems to me Mike that your final pic of the gear includes a lot more stuff than what you intended to take originally..all that gear plus a bunch of books, chairs and a musicians table...you boys really do travel to the hilt in style lolll..yeah yeah joking again.
We Combo Clubbers await your next installment to see if the PF-800 demons have been exorcised by Pastor John or your backup Rumble gets to move some air instead.
Have fun guys.
Giff and fellow CC members wish you well.
It's as I say in my bio-"Playing 'til I can't"
