Greetings Springsters Supreme!
Longer sunny days are among us and that means that our rooftop solar array is happily chugging along. The arrow on the meter is bolting to the grid and “giving it to the man.” Add to that some great music moments, some epic dog walks with Stef, and a slice of the surfing life and it all adds into a good blendo over here at SpragueLand.
The Pat Metheny gig that went down a couple weeks back was truly a joyous, “living the dream” event that we’ll all remember for a long time.
We met up in Newport Beach at a fancy Jewish synagogue that had a big room with a stage and a curtain. Pat had a top-notch sound and lighting crew in place and for the first day we rehearsed the music for 5 hours. It was so cool playing the songs with him and getting his input on updates and improvements. I think he was thrilled that we knew the music so well from all the prep that we had done leading up to the gig.
The next day, another rehearsal and then dinner leading into the concert. The event was for a fellow that is a longtime Metheny fan and he was surprising his wife and all the guests with this special concert. They didn’t know who was going to play but they knew something was up. For previous events this man had hired John Mayer, who at the last minute couldn’t make it so instead, they got Sting to fly in and play.
Big time rollers these folks and Pat said this was the first of these kind of gigs that he’s ever done. He said he did it (not only because of the steep money) but that me and the boys lived close and it’d be a good chance to connect. He and his wife had been tuning into the Live(ish) From SpragueLand livestream shows where we featured his music.
So the host fellow introduces us, the curtain opens and Pat starts shredding. We go from one song pretty much into the next, all the while Pat’s guitar tone is of the highest order plus the melodicism that he possess is the real deal. Great music going down, the audience is listening and digging it, and 9 songs later we’re complete and then it’s off to the green room for an hour of debriefing with Pat whose sharing cool stories and kindness. What a night!
You know that thing where sometimes you meet your heroes and their image that you hold gets tarnished because they aren’t as cool as you imagined them to be? Well in this instance it was just the opposite — Pat’s playing was off the Richter and as a human being he’s super kind, smart, humble, and a hoot to hang with.
Maybe we’ll get to do it again the next time a billionaire Metheny fan decides to throw a party… Hah!
The Metheny gig playing “Have You Heard.” Left to right, John, Mack, Pat, Peter, Leonard, and Duncan.
After the gig in the green room, left to right, Leonard, John Opferkuch, Pat, Peter, Mack, and Duncan
We’ve got two concerts coming up that it’d be good to get the word out. We’re playing the Paul Simon music again not only because it’s so much fun but also because the last concert we did sold out and there were folks that were sad because they couldn’t get in. This time we’re at Dizzy’s, which has a good covid policy in place, but also it sounds good in there and if you need more space from your neighbor, you can create that. Check out the poster below for the details.
And we’re live streaming 2 weeks down the way with music that I played on my first four Xanadu Record releases back in 1979. Xanadu Revisited with Tripp, John, Mack, Duncan, and special guest Kate Sprague on vocals. Digital Brian is back in the loop with us for this show along with my wife Stef who is chat-meister supreme and Switcher Steve at the ATEM control center. It’ll be a good show!
There it is folks and hoping you get outside today and take in a little sunshine, best, Peter