First off, it's no secret that I like fried okra. I like it a lot. A good friend of mine, Brian Cheatham, likes it as well. We had always said it was a drag that there wasn't an "okra fest" in our area (the one in Checotah, OK is no longer) and that we just needed to put one together ourselves. We could just start small, I'd be the "entertainment" and he'd be the "art" and we invite a few of our friends. Easy enough, right? Well, we had talked about this for a couple of years - pretty much every time we were both sitting around together in Las Vegas at 3 or 4am saying, "we've got to do this." But, nothing much really ever happened. Then, Brian and his wife Kristi mentioned the idea to their Friday night trivia friends... Enter Jeff & Shelly Mack.
Jeff & Shelly have a farm in McKinney (fully equipped with a nice outdoor stage) and had done a fest of their own called, "Shelly Fest" in past years. They were intrigued by the okra idea and were interested in testing the waters, maybe getting back into the fests. So, they took the ball and ran with it... and Okra Fest was born!
Originally, I had booked this show as a solo performance. When it was all being put together, Heath and I had not met and I was still in the process of deciding how to make all this SDR stuff work in a live situation. I figured that I would do a "Roy Holliday from Sand Dollar Rodeo" show and, if I hadn't put a backing band together by the time of Okra Fest, I could just run it all off my keyboards and deal with it. I mean, I figured 10-20 people there, like a fun little party, right?
Well, the Mack's are not amateurs at putting shows together. Most anyone who has played around Texas much knows them. Oh, and Jeff works on the TV show Troubadour Texas. They know what they're doing. So, this thing started to grow...
Around the same time that I was updated on the growth of the event, I had come up with a mental picture of what I wanted to present on stage for Sand Dollar Rodeo and where I wanted to go with it. My plan was to sequence everything and run it from my keyboard rig and then, as I brought musicians on board over time, delete the programming I had done for their parts. But first - Guitar!
I placed an ad and Heath responded, we clicked, he was in. For the funny details of that, be sure to check out Heath's blog. I won't get into it here, he tells the story better. So, with about a month to go, Heath agreed to play the gig at Okra Fest... and we did!
What do I remember most about that show? It was HOT! I believe it was around 106 degrees when we started. I remember setting up my gear and thinking, "I sure hope my keyboard doesn't melt." I was serious. Anyway, it didn't and things were fine. They had set up some huge fans on the outdoor stage and it was actually quite comfortable up there. Oh, I also remember that Spygoat did an awesome job on the sound - very nice sound system, very nice guys - I look forward to working with them again.
Heath and I brought Candy (more on her later, I'm sure) and the three of us played what was, technically, the first Sand Dollar Rodeo show. We played for an hour and our set consisted of the Six Pack Demo along with a few covers - Postcard, Beautiful World, Wrap It Up, Sangria Wine and, of course, I Want Candy.
I was very nervous prior to the start of this show. SDR is not country, it's not rock, it's not disco, it's just us doing what we do and it comes out sounding however we feel it should come out. We do not claim any genre other than what we are. The rest of the bill for that day was TX Country and Singer/Songwriter type stuff from Randy Hopper, David Byboth and Davin James & the Bullnettle Band. All great performers, but different from what we do. Luckily, the set was very well received and we had a great time. Sampling the dishes from the creative okra contest wasn't half bad either!
So, that was our first show - we have high hopes there will be an Okra Fest 2013. If so, you know we'll be there with our best eatin' clothes on! Next up... Angels In Tropical Shirts Trop Rock Music Festival.
Until then...
Stay gold,
RH
