We set out for the east coast in the middle of a Polar Vortex, which the 24 hour news cycle assured would bring our doom. We raced ahead of our snowy death towards the coast. It was a long, snowy, blowy bleak drive. By the time we arrived in a much warmer Philadelphia, we were ready to get out of the van and play some music. Our venue tonight was the World Cafe Live, which also has a radio station in the building. It was a beautiful venue with a huge stage, great sight lines and cool art all over the lobby walls. Tonight we opened for the legendary Dirty Dozen Brass Band. I've idolized Kevin Harris, their tenor player, for years and list him as one of my top 10 favorite living tenor players. Needless to say, I was excited that we got to open up for them and loved listening to their sound check.
Following our sound check, we went upstairs to the restaurant and got some dinner. Oddly, there was a doctor giving a presentation on hip replacement surgery. We couldn't talk as it would interrupt his speech, so we ate in silence while listening to a very sterile (pun intended) presentation. When the speaker opened up the floor for questions from the audience, I offered a $10 reward to anyone in the band who would ask him "What is Hip?" No one got the $10.After dinner we got to hang out with the guys from Dirty Dozen, and got to hear some fun stories and laugh a lot. They are fun guys, and they like to bring the party.
We had a good set, and the audience was extremely receptive and the Dirty Dozen fellas cheered us on from the wings. It felt great, as we hadn't played live for a while. We had a short opening set and got to sit back and watch the Dirty Dozen do their thing.
Dirty Dozen plays funky, fun New Orleans brass band music. During their set we were dancing, singing and yelling our asses off from the side of the stage. Their trumpet player signaled to me to get my horn. I nearly shit my pants, and then went into an excited panic, as my horn was put away on the other side of the stage. I raced through the audience and put my horn together. I was really nervous, which I haven't been in quite a long time. I walked out on stage, and it was a blur. I don't really remember what happened while I was on stage, but once I got off stage, I got really giddy and started shaking with excitement. The realization of what I just got to do set in and I felt like a little kid on Christmas morning. A true dream come true. After the show we drove an hour to our hotel, and hung out at the bar while I waited for the adrenaline to wear off.
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