Memorial Day at Guantanamo Bay (lotta fun)

[CharlieO]

I just got back late Tuesday from a great gig. I booked The Producers to play the annual Memorial Day Beach And Music Festival for the troops, employees, and families at the U.S. Naval Air Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Not being one to pass up an opportunity, I appointed myself as road manager for this show. We flew down on Sunday from Atlanta in a C130 with three other bands. Twenty-eight rock n' rollers and a couple of pallets of stage gear made this an interesting trip for the flight crew, I think. Several of us took turns in the cockpit, and I actually got to "fly" the plane.

The Navy treated us like VIP's, with a cocktail reception at the Commanding Officer's home, flag presentations for each of the bands, and too much other really great stuff. That was really amazing to all of us. We just wanted to go down there and do something nice for the troops, but whatever we did for them didn't seem to come close to matching all of the really great things they did for us.

Monday's show was a lot of fun. I hadn't seen rain in months, so of course it had to rain during Mother's Finest's set, and the roof of the stage leaked a heck of a lot of water. The rain stopped before The Producers' show, and a broom and all 50 towels from the dressing room did a decent job of drying things up. We cleared Mother's Finest from the stage, and fired up the brand new right-out-of-the-box Marshall JCM2000 that sounded so great with Van's Tele at sound check that morning. It was dead- no bringing it back to life, a casualty of the rain. A reasonable substitute was available, so that worked out okay. The drummer's monitors were gone, too, probably soaked when they raised the roof to dump out the water. Another quick fix, and we were good to go. The set was great, with an excellent audio mix from a guy who had never mixed the band before, Gary Brunclik of Clearwing Audio. I've known Gary for 25 years, but I haven't seen him for 15, and he just happened to be running the show for the Navy. He's an old pro, and he's a huge Producers fan. He was really excited to get a chance to mix the band for the first time, and we were very lucky to have him there. By the way, we used a substitute keyboard player for this show, David Manion from Atlanta, and he was outstanding. Wayne Famous had better be on his best behavior in the future, because there's someone else out there who knows all of his parts flawlessly. One more thing- we have to thank our host, Commander Jeff Johnston, for jumping on stage to provide his fine vocal harmonies on "What's He Got?". The troops love you, Jeff. Thanks also to Craig Basel, MWR program director, for making the show happen.

The show was fun, but what really made this trip was the education that all of us got in less than 48 hours at Guantanamo. We realize that we were privileged to see things that very few people will have a chance to see, and we had unbelieveably interesting conversations with people who play a very important part in events that we read about in the newspapers every day.

I know that a lot of you guys have played shows for the military, and you know how great those audiences are. If you haven't had the chance to play for the troops, you really should make an effort to do it. We can't wait to do it again.

[WallyArms]

Thanks for supporting the troops - I was stationed in Guantanamo from 1992-1995, and my second child was born there.

[Brian Krashpad]

Cool story. I had no idea the Producers were still around. I can recall seeing them in the early 80's at the UF Bandshell in Gainesville.