Celebration for Zach

Our good friends and neighbors, the King family, were throwing a big party to celebrate their son Zach- and his three years of successful treatment for leukemia.  When they invited the Drop Daddies to play, we were honored to join them.

We were to play in a large temporary tent that had been erected behind the Kings’ house.  It had heavy plastic sheeting for walls, built-in lights and ducting for heating. It was such an amazingly warm October evening that we removed the heater ducting and pulled back the plastic walls, like stage curtains.

This was the day after the school carnival- making for a busy weekend for the Drop Daddies.  We hadn’t really prepared a setlist, so we discussed it over dinner (catered by Dickies BBQ), and then we all walked around the corner to John’s front door to get on the wi-fi, and sync up Set List Maker on our iPads.

This party turned out to be one of the most fun, and happiest celebrations we’ve ever been a part of.  Everyone, including Zach himself, got up and danced with us, throughout the whole evening.  Tami came up and sang with us a couple times, as did her brother on Life Is A Highway!

We played Jack and Diane for the first time – Gary’s wife Lisa finally getting her wish.  It was Jeff’s first time with a mic, and he had fun belting out the chorus in  Rock and Roll All Nite.   Roy requested John play the solo section in Shook Me All Night Long again, as he had missed it the first time.    Even after 30 songs, they were asking us to play more.

We must have been loud- friends all the way across the valley told us the next day that they had heard us!

We receiveda few iPhone videos from friends, and Xeno did some videoing on his iPad.   Not the highest quality, but here’s a short compilation: