This place was one of the better places we played, location-wise: at the very mouth of the Connecticut River, bang up next to a marina. Some of the lights you can see in the background are a railroad bridge that takes trains from New Haven to Boston; some of the fainter ones are on Long Island, some 15-20 miles away. The crowd was always very into it when we played.
But getting ourselves to that point was always a fucking chore. Even with our kit on dollies, carts, and hand trucks, we had to negotiate a concrete common area between the restaurant and some of the other buildings in the complex, which the landlord resolutely refused to patch once it became obvious that the concrete they'd used was of a decidedly inferior variety you wouldn't want to use as a foundation for your house, or find out that your contractor had used. Thrills and spills galore! Total distance, probably about the same hundred yards, and again, it might as well have been an unpaved parking lot that played host to a bunch of yahoos doing hole shots (we do have a few of those in the 860). Humping six musicians' worth of kit in 95 degree heat and 70% humidity, as it usually was whenever we played there, was worth packing a couple of frosty bottles of PowerAde Zero just to keep hydrated. And we'd start an hour or two before sunset, so it would stay that hot at least until we were halfway through our last set (we'd finish by 10PM), by which time either a welcome breeze would finally waft north from Long Island Sound, or else it would be pissing rain and we'd have to negotiate that concrete patio-in-name-only in between sheets of water.
In fact the heat was what finally killed my Kronos some time later: it overheated on just such a day in direct sunlight, and took the sideboard that powered its internal hard drive (and the drive itself) down with it. Haven't been able to get it to produce sound since, although it still does power up.
But getting ourselves to that point was always a fucking chore. Even with our kit on dollies, carts, and hand trucks, we had to negotiate a concrete common area between the restaurant and some of the other buildings in the complex, which the landlord resolutely refused to patch once it became obvious that the concrete they'd used was of a decidedly inferior variety you wouldn't want to use as a foundation for your house, or find out that your contractor had used. Thrills and spills galore! Total distance, probably about the same hundred yards, and again, it might as well have been an unpaved parking lot that played host to a bunch of yahoos doing hole shots (we do have a few of those in the 860). Humping six musicians' worth of kit in 95 degree heat and 70% humidity, as it usually was whenever we played there, was worth packing a couple of frosty bottles of PowerAde Zero just to keep hydrated. And we'd start an hour or two before sunset, so it would stay that hot at least until we were halfway through our last set (we'd finish by 10PM), by which time either a welcome breeze would finally waft north from Long Island Sound, or else it would be pissing rain and we'd have to negotiate that concrete patio-in-name-only in between sheets of water.
In fact the heat was what finally killed my Kronos some time later: it overheated on just such a day in direct sunlight, and took the sideboard that powered its internal hard drive (and the drive itself) down with it. Haven't been able to get it to produce sound since, although it still does power up.