On 08/08, I get a text from my buddy and local guitar shredder, John Paolilli , about a country/ pop gig in Nantucket. 2 weeks later, I’m on stage playing about 17 hours of music over a 48 hour span. Luke Bryan, Kenny Chesney, Johnny Cash, Keith Urban, and dozens of other artists had the crowds throwing women in the air, sitting on people’s shoulders, people leaning over the barricades the brewery had to put out to keep their distance from us due to the chaos, etc. Even through our last set, multiple fans ended up on stage: one helping herself up to request “Wagon Wheel” telling us about how she’s from Ireland and another accidentally falling on stage and not realizing she was on stage.
The weekend was put together by Chris Ruediger, a Nashville artist who also doubles as an artist/ marketing manager. He brought along his Nashville friends: drummer Gunner Streuli, bassist Pat Lyons, and singer Alec Mac. All had Boston ties, either growing up in the area or going to school in the area (one went to Berklee briefly). Interestingly, Pat (I was known as “DC” to avoid confusion) grew up down the street from me until moving to Westwood before relocating to Nashville.
After agreeing to the gig, John put me in touch with Chris. We traded texts and he shared a list of about 35 songs and about 2 weeks to learn them all. He mentioned I didn’t need to memorize them and could bring sheet music to read but be ready to handle changes on the fly. I did this when in the pit for Hairspray so wasn’t too intimidated by that. Songs kept getting added and I even remember on my way to the airport to meet Chris and Gunnar, I opened the shared Notes app which had all the songs and could manually see someone adding more songs. Funny, but also a bit nerve wracking.
After meeting them at Logan Airport Friday afternoon, Chris drove us to Chatham where we met up with Pat (who had a gig in Detroit the night before) and eventually Alec (who was hired last minute to play a wedding reception that night). We stayed the night there and jumped on the Nantucket ferry the next morning. The Cisco Brewery shuttle on the island took us right to their venue where we sound-checked and then went to their band house to get ready. About 8 hours later, we were done for the day.
In those 7 hours, we had a few breaks with Chris and Alec doing some solo acoustic stuff. It was an amazing time: beautiful weather, an audience wanting party, girls being thrown in the air and dancing on guys’ shoulders, a barricade being put up to keep people from crowding the stage, and meeting lots of great people. We played most of the songs from the list we had but several medleys were thrown in, most notably a near 20 minute jam of Amy Winehouse’s “Valerie” which had bits of Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me” and some other songs I can’t remember thrown in.
At times, I was a bit lost but would just find out what key a song was in and go with it. Sometimes Chris would turn to me and tell me what key and all the chord changes. Sometimes, I’d look to Pat to see where his fingers which let me know the chords. At one point, Chris turned to me telling me the song and which key it was in only to turn to me a few seconds in and say “sorry, it’s not in that key” and I replied “and it’s not that song”. After the set, we all hung out at a few local places, laid low, and spent time looking up at the millions of stars which you don’t get to see when you live in a big city.
On Sunday, Alec, Pat, and I walked around the island and grabbed some breakfast while admiring all the wealth around us. It seems the whole island was at Cisco because every street corner we turned and every shop we passed, people were quick to come out and congratulate us on a great show. I was receiving texts from people who saw social media posts of their friends at the show. Apparently Jason Garrett wasn’t there because we passed him a few times and he never wanted an autograph. 🙁
We were back at it at 12pm. By this time, I was known as the anthem guy in the band so opened the show with The Star Spangled Banner. I would’ve thought all country shows started with that?? We also had one extra person with us: Gavin Marengi. Chris invited him out and he played a few solo sets during our break. We saw some familiar faces and while the crowd was tamer than Saturday, the tips seemed to be bigger.
After another 12pm – 7pm set (originally scheduled for 1pm – 5pm), some of us stayed out and partied and some (like me) went back to the house to relax. After laying low and grabbing dinner, we had one last set at Gaslight from 10pm – 1am.
No band name. Not knowing anyone I’m playing with for the next 2 days. Never playing country music before. What a trip. Hope to ride again with them next year.
Set Lists included:
– [ ] Barefoot Blue Jean Night
– [ ] Whiskey Glasses – Morgan Wallen
– [ ] Buy Me A Boat – Chris Janson
– [ ] Folsom Prison – Johnny Cash
– [ ] Tequila – Dan and Shay
– [ ] Play It Again – Luke Bryan
– [ ] Ain’t No Sunshine – Bill Withers
– [ ] Hurricane – Luke Comb
– [ ] Come Back Song – Darius Rucker
– [ ] Brown Eyed Girl – Van Morrison
– [ ] Talladega – Eric Church
– [ ] Chicken Fried – ZBB
– [ ] Country Girl – Luke Bryan
– [ ] When It Rains It Pours – Luke Combs
– [ ] Body Like A Back Road – Sam Hunt
– [ ] beer never broke my heart – Luke Combs
– [ ] Tennessee whiskey – Stapleton
– [ ] Stay a little longer – Brothers Osborne
– [ ] Cruise – FGL
– [ ] wagon wheel – Darius Rucker
– [ ] friends in low places – garth
– [ ] sweet home Alabama/all summer long
– [ ] Before He Cheats – Carrie Underwood
– [ ] Pink Pony Club – Chappel
– [ ] Feathered Indians – Childers
– [ ] Heartache on the dance floor – Jon Pardi
– [ ] Beer in Mexico – Kenny
– [ ] Won’t back down – petty
– [ ] Somebody like you – Keith urban
– [ ] Dirt road anthem – Jason Aldean
– [ ] Stick season – Noah Kahan
– [ ] More than my hometown
– [ ] American kids – Kenny
– [ ] Last dance with Mary Jane – petty
– [ ] Sugar we’re going down
– [ ] Mr brightside
– [ ] All the small things
– [ ] American Girl – Petty