John Tesh on piano, and a whole bunch of musicians, jamming in the ballroom, on the fourth floor of the classic Casino building in Avalon, on the island of Catalina. Sitting 20-some miles off the coast of L.A. and Orange Counties, Santa Catalina island is a popular boating destination, and the only place where wild buffalo (OK, American bison) roam in Southern California. This show was taped live and aired on PBS in the 1990's. Skip to 29:00 in the show, that's a pretty jamming section, where several musicians do solos.
One day in the mid-90's, I got a call from the grip company who worked on American Gladiators, and a couple of other shows I worked on. Steve, the crew chief, said something like, "You live in Huntington Beach, right?" I said, "Yeah." He continued, "You want to go work out on Catalina for a couple of days?" I said I would. I was on the B-list of crew guys for that grip company, when their normal 8 or 10 guys needed help now and then. I got called to work for a day here and there, after working with them tearing down the Gladiators set for the four years I worked on that crew.
I was told we would take the ferry out early in the morning, help unload and set up for a concert, come back, then go back three days later to tear down. I made their base rate of $150 a day, which was good money for me back then. But knowing how production work can change, I took a small backpack with a change of clothes and stuff needed for a couple of days, just in case.
The show wound up being the John Tesh concert you see above. self produced to air on PBS. John Tesh was best known as the long time host of Entertainment Tonight, but also loved playing piano and keyboards. So this show was a self-financed, self-produced on his part, to show off his musical talent, and play with some really high caliber musicians. The lead guitarist was the house guitarist on Saturday Night Live, that's the only one I recognized. His name is G.E. Smith, which I didn't know until just now.
As things worked out, I go tasked to stay over, along with a few other guys, who had never done grip/roadie work before, and help more the next day. We all pitched in on a room, which came to about $15 each or something. Then we got asked to work the spotlights during rehearsal. Then we were told we were the spotlight guys for the show. We had al lfigured there were "real" lighting guys coming over that night. Then we tore down the set that night and the next day.
During the concert itself, I was 25 feet up on a platform, stage right, audience left, and my job was to keep a back spot on Charlie the lead violin player, the guy in the green pirate captain jacket. He ran all over the stage, so keeping a light on him kept me busy in the fast songs. Three of the spotlight guys were actually hanging above the audience on a 20" wide piece of truss, you can see them in a few shots. I said "no way," to that. I was up on the tower with sodas and snacks during the show, munching out when we weren't busy.
It turned out to be a fun gig to work. I wound up working six ten hour shifts in 3 1/2 days, three of them back to back to back. I caught a couple hours sleep halfway through. I came home with $600 cash in my pocket, and another $300 coming in a check. It wa also the only time I've ever been to Catalina. I need to get back out there at some point, it's a cool place. It seems like you're a million miles from anywhere, but it's 30 or so miles from downtown Los Angeles. It was a fun three days, followed by a solid day of sleep back at home.
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