Love & Soul Family Festival

Matt & Kim Gunn host Love & Soul events every month.. Basically a dinner with a concert attached featuring local and regional artists of various genres.. I have performed once or twice at these events and had such a wonderful time. This year they did an outdoor family festival at Forsyth park. Great food, Vendors, health information and more.. Matt asked if I would like to provide some music and I said of course! So immediately got to work on preparing my set...my goal was to prepare an acoustic set utilizing some of the talent resources and connections I had been developing... Started w/ Mike Butler for percussion bringing the Afro Latin feel on Cajon and Congas,. I had been rehearsing with Charlie Sherrill for another event on Tybee and invited him to be a part of this one on Sax and flute.

Really wanted a second guitar to free me up a little filling the chordal and rhythmic texture and immediately thought of Josh who i helped get started on guitar a couple years ago.. I am so extremely proud of Josh! 15 years old and turning out to be as great a musician as he is a dancer..I wanted him to get some stage time so asked him to come aboard.

He always exceeds my expectations musically and it is so awesome watching his development... Normally when available Cliff  and Christian are my go to guys on drums and Bass but because of School and work didn't have them... without Christian there on the gig I knew I would cover bass timer in my chord voicing sand have Josh focus on the middle and upper... rehearsals were so much fun preparing for the set! Because Cliffs schedule prevented him from being there I had Mike broaden his percusssion setup and it worked well in rehearsals and we were prepared to go without a drum set. But the day of the gig  happily Patrick who is an awesome young drummer filled in on drum set and benefitted  the timbre greatly...
We were scheduled for our set at 1:30 and Josh was double booked at Savannah children's museum before and after our set at the park. It turns out we would have to go on 30 minutes early and it  actually worked for our benefit so Josh could get back to his other event without having to rush! Coolness!  At the time of our last rehearsal, the person I had contacted to video the set fell through and I was kind of bummed, but dear friend Clay Hodges's made a quick call and put me in touch with Tyriek Williamson who greatly exceeded our expectations in terms of quality gear and skill.

Tyriek showed up with a tripod setup, handheld, annnnndddd a DRONE! This blew my mind!
All I can say is it was a beautiful day! Sound was great except I wish tech had given Josh more volume and panned him to the left in the mix. Other than that all was cool. This was only my third time performing on the bandshell at Forsyth.. each time has been daylight though.. I look forward to next time maybe doing an evening set of full concert  with more lighting and video tech built into the performance...