Platinum at St. Regis for the Atlanta Opera Benefit: Third Time's a Charm

How oddly coincidental to have three jobs in the same venue with the same band.  As big as this city is and as many places we have played, the odds have to be quite small.  Yet here we were once again, smack dab in the middle of Buckhead at the St. Regis Hotel in the same ballroom.  It looked great with red draping flanking the rear of the raised stage.  The crowd was certainly well-to-do, as there was a silent auction as well as a full-on rabble-rousing auction geared to raise money for an opera company in dire need of funding. The arts in Atlanta is undergoing some tough times, with the ASO going through some potential downsizing.  Hoping this was a lucrative venture for this crew.

We had it fairly easy, although that meant a long wait until we could finally get up and play our blend of Motown, dance, and oldies.  Dianna Crawford, on loan from Platinum Soul, came to the rescue to complete the front line.  It felt like a show from 3 years ago, as the set list included many tunes we hadn't played in a while.  I was proud of this night in that I believe it was the very first show I've done with them that I didn't refer to a single music chart the entire night.  Yay!  No music stand!  I had rehearsed Last Dance and my break in The Love You Save, so I was ready for everything.  I could have played the entire night on the P-bass.  I ended up playing much of the second set on the NS Stick, which certainly had a beautiful tone.  I haven't practiced any tapping lately, other than the Rihanna medly on the Stick.  Funky technique indeed.  I had revelation with my octave effect and Forget You sounded rather good with it.  We ended up closing the night with Virginia's choices of Don't Stop Believin' and Just Dance.  Good old-fashioned fun!  BTW, I will go on record as saying that I was looking forward to getting through the aforementioned Last Dance without a chart - I'm certain that I was the only one who was slightly bummed we weren't going to do it after all...

Kevin took this during our soundcheck.  Great to have Dianna back with us,
although she doesn't appear to be too enthused at this moment.  I look like I
do in many of my "action shots"!

Had an opening act; a woman sang an excerpt from a famous opera that I certainly cannot recall.  Not exactly my area of expertise or passion.  Still, she was very animated and passionate.  Every eye was on her, and she was quite attractive.  A great job for a relatively critical crowd.  For our part, we gave our usual show.  It went over better than I would have expected.  Some ladies got up on stage and gave an impressive impromptu dance performance.  Almost stole the show!  Another scene stealer was Di laying down on the stage to sing the opening of Proud Mary - we've missed that aspect of her irreverential humor.

Glen is always getting caught falling asleep.
This time was extra funny because he was joking about  sleeping by his "fake snoring",
and then he crashed out anyways.

Gus can't believe his eyes.

Looking more and more like my dad every day.