Last Weekend, North Point Retreat

So last weekend was an awesome experience for me. My dad invited me to play music with him and a few of his friends at a men's retreat they do every year. We drove down to Maryland to North Point, a retreat center right on the Chesapeake bay. When we first got there we started setting up in the auditorium type room. I had a lot of instruments for this gig. I was playing both alto and tenor sax. I had two djembes and I also was playing my dad's guitar. I even sang on a few songs during the weekend. So once we were all set up we went into our room and chilled until dinner. All the food during the weekend was awesome. So the first session we played at was pretty good. My dad was playing keyboard, his friend Henry on bass and his other friend Rick on drums. We had a pretty nice sound and the system they had in the room was decent.

I had a lot of fun hanging out with my dad and his friends surprisingly. At night we would go out to the bar and listen to some really good bands. The first night we heard a blues band called Lower Case Blues. They were amazing. Definitely the best blues band I've ever heard live. They had one guitar player sitting in but the band consisted of just bass, drums and guitar. With the second guitar player it was awesome though. The two guys would solo back and forth and just looked like they were having a great time. The bass player did the lead vocals and had a great voice. The drummer wasn't too good though. It was really all they needed with all the other great players though. The next night we went out to the same bar. Another band was playing that was also pretty good. I was really impressed with the drummer. She could really play and sang lead vocals for a few songs as well. It was a lot of fun listening to the music even though I got carded every time I tried to buy a beer.

Back at North Point we did a lot of cool things as well. They had two zip lines, a ropes course, a huge swing, 18 hole Frisbee golf course, and two rock walls. I wish I could have done the zip line but they only had the one going into the bay open and I didn't really feel like getting wet considering it was like 65 degrees out. I did do the swing and it was pretty cool. Later that day one of the guys on the retreat did it and nearly fell out. He was hanging upside down out of the seat. I saw a video of it and he could have died. The ropes course was pretty sweet but only a shortened version of it was opened. I also climbed the rock wall but it was pretty easy.

Overall I had an awesome weekend, played great music, and got payed $400. I'm definitely looking forward to playing another retreat. I don't really know what my next gig is going to be but I'll fill you in when I play out next.