All around Chesapeake Bay, at nearly every marina, there were huge crowds of boating enthusiasts, lots of poolside parties, and of course, there was music. A few locations had DJs, but the vast majority of the venues were entertained by bands. The smallest I saw was a trio that performed last year at the marina where I currently keep my sailboat. Their first set lasted 30 minutes, they took a 45 minute break, ate huge quantities of food and gulped down copious quantities of liquid refreshments. Every song they performed sounded like the first song. I could tell right away that the volume would be ear-bleed level, especially considering that 500-feet away I could hear the guitar player/vocalist saying "check, check, check, check." Now, this wasn't 500 feet across open water. Instead, this was in a crowded marina, and the pool is situated along the outer edge of a large condo complex. I guess the best way I could describe them would be Loud & Lousy - and I'm being quite generous.

Last night I was anchored a few hundred yards from a peninsula that is part of a marina complex. The marina is huge, holds many, many, mega-yachts, and on the peninsula is a large Tiki Hut bar, surrounded by dozens of Casablanca Tables with 4 to 6 stools at each. The band was a Reggae band, looked like about 5 or 6 band members, and every song sounded the same. I guess if you were a big Bob Marley fan they would have been fine, but somewhere about the 10th song the place was inhabited by that same half-dozen young girls that seem to show up at every wedding DonM and I have played over the years. The only difference here is they all wore bikinis that resembled two Band-aids and cork. Not much left to the imagination, and naturally, they were blasted out of their minds on booze, and I believe other things as well.

Later in the evening the party moved up to the resort area and a rock band that spent the better part of two hours setting up kicked off the night with some fireworks launched off the stage that drifted down on some of the multimillion dollar yachts. Someone is gonna end up spending an awful lot of money fixing up all those fireworks burn marks. The band, I guess they were OK for the younger generation, and they put an entirely new meaning to the term "ear-bleed volume." From more than 500 yards away, snug in the cabin of my boat the drums and bass reverberated through the water and sounded like someone was beating against the boat's hull with their fist. It was probably the loudest I've encountered in all my years on the planet. At the end of each set, someone would set off some more fireworks, only this time they were fired off from the peninsula and sent over the open water areas of the bay.

If everything works out OK, I hope to take the month of February off and head south, spend some time with several of the Synthzone and PSR-Tutorial members along the way, then continue to the Florida Keys, spend a couple weeks playing the marinas and tiki bars in Marathon Key. If time allows, and my loving spouse doesn't kill me, I hope to head up to the Florida Panhandle where Diki lives and plays, meet up with him and a few others, then swing northwest to Bossier City, LA and get together with DonM, Paul, and a few others. Might even have time for another Synthzone Jam.

Back to the bands. On the way home today, I had to stop for fuel (yeah, you need fuel once in a while - even with a sailboat). There was a band setting up at the marina, and they had a lot of gear. Probably at least 20 speakers, some on poles, some stacked on top of others and a half-dozen monitors. They were just tuning up when I arrived at the fuel dock, and fired up with "Good Hearted Woman." It was incredibly loud, but I must say, they sounded pretty darned good from 100 feet away at the dock. This particular band consisted of a drummer, synth player, lead guitar player, rhythm guitar player, bass player and a fiddle player. The fiddle player was incredible. At least three of them were also vocalist. As I pulled away from the fuel dock, they were back to doing sound checks and I guess tweaking things for their performance later that afternoon.

All of these bands played extremely loud - much too loud for my taste. Ironically, while driving home from the marina this evening something crossed my mind that made me chuckle. Nearly 40 years ago I played rhythm guitar for a 5-piece country band. The guy that put the band together could only play three or four chords, needed a capo for any chord other than "C", but he was a pretty good singer. After the first set he would always introduce the individual band members, and then made the following statement: "You're dancing to the music of the Harford County Ramblers - we ain't good, but we're loud!" Seems like that's what I encountered this weekend.

Happy Labor Day Everyone,

Gary