When I was living back in the ORANGE ROOM, I never could have guessed that I'd still be playing music well into my 60's. I'm currently writing this blog from the lanai in our SW Florida rental with one more gig to play thus finishing a 23 date tour!!! We leave in a couple days and will miss all the people we've met and the warm weather.
While enjoying the afternoon, a memory crossed my mind about a funny gig that the Flying D'Rito Brothers played on a night in back in 2001. The band at the time was quite large, consisting of six band members. It was a short lived experiment that sounded good on paper but didn't really fly. Sometimes it's better to fly a little more lean. But on this particular night, which I believe was our maiden voyage, we were hired to play an optometrist dinner consisting of all the major eye doctors in Central Illinois. It was held at the Peoria Country Club.
Now by nature, I tend to be a little sensitive of the class divisions in gigs like this. The elite are always served hand and foot by waiters and waitresses like modern day slaves. The band are always an after thought and feeling that this gig may be one of those stuffy displays of snobbery, I had an idea.
Knowing that this gig was to be attended by every eye doctor in the midwest, I asked my faithful wife if she could sew six black eye patches for the band to wear at that engagement. With dutiful diligence, she presented six beautifully constructed eye patches which I handed out to each band member. The Dritos were to wait until the beginning of our first song and with my instruction, place the eye patch over the left eye and begin to Rock!!!!
So, after dinner, when each table was lighting their first cigar, I stepped up to the microphone and with a stern, eye yi eye!!!! The band, who were facing the drums away from the dinner crowd, all turned around in unison with their eye patches over their left eyes......and with that, we began our first song and played completely through the tune with one eye covered.
The look from the audience was one of complete disenchantment and disgust. Not one person smiled or even acknowledged that the joke was even remotely funny!!! Maybe the joke was on us that they were completely unaware of the joke!!! Either way, I laughed and was delighted at our sophomoric humor and the return display of their elite snobbery.
Just another tale of us against them from the ORANGE ROOM.
Comments