BOL Vid Update with guest Amanda Blair!
BOL Vid Update with Amanda Hill Blair! Wait.. does Amanda play guitar too? We also reflect on some fun recent DUO gigs, and discuss this week's events!
How was your weekend?
Amanda and I had two fantastic DUO shows at Center Street Tavern and Los Magueys in West Marietta! We are very thankful for everyone that came out to support us. Both nights we saw a host of people that we haven’t seen in some time.. so it was great to connect with family and friends.. and fans. THANK YOU!
Enjoy this week’s update.. Amanda picked up the guitar and started picking out some Bob Marley.. I forgot that she knew that riff on guitar!
Check below the video for events for this week that we are excited about.
Private Events Rock.. Let's Book Your Party Today!
We love private events.. Here’s one that was a blast over the weekend. Let’s book something for your next event!
This is Victoria.. she had an awesome birthday bash over the weekend, thanks to her husband Dave, putting everything together and hiring.. drumroll…. BlairOutLoud BAND!
Major shoutout to Dave, and Victoria’s family for coordinating this huge effort, renting out the roof top of the Strand Theater (in Marietta, GA), decorating everything to the max, getting awesome food catering, and clearing the “stage” space for the band! We would also like to thank the Strand for accommodating our afternoon load-in and setup journey.
Enjoy the photos from the event posted below (not my own.. all ripped from the organizer’s FB page).
We really had a blast at this party! BlairOutLoud BAND performs a solid mix of classic rock anthems, 80’s danceable rock, and 90’s alternative jams. There’s a little something for everyone, and we keep it as versatile and energetic as possible. At this event, we had our friend John Sousa filling in on bass guitar and he was fantastic.
We would love to come setup and play for your next event!
CONTACT me here to get rates and a quote that will work for your budget. BlairOutLoud private events can be just me.. BlairOutLoud SOLO, quiet OR loud btw… If you need me to sit in a corner and play guitar, I can do that.. Of course, if you let me stand, sing, and entertain that’s always a plus. LOL
But we can also offer BlairOutLoud DUO, which brings Amanda Blair into the mix on keys, flute, and percussion. Amanda adds a little more energy into an “acoustic duo” setup. Plus, she sings, so we can cover lots of female vocal driven songs as well.
Sometimes what’s right for the space.. or the budget, is BlairOutLoud TRIO. Trio shows usually are in tighter spaces where a full band with more than three people wouldn’t really fit. The Trio plays a lot of the same material the band would play, but can be a bit more relaxed, or “off the cuff” as you could say. The Trio has been perfect for small dock parties (around waterfronts), living room jams (we’ve done a few of those), small clubs with little or no stage, etc etc.
And finally BlairOutLoud BAND, where we reserve our most versatile, higher quality, and set-driven rock show offering. We bring the biggest sound and light production for this effort, and we generally need a bigger space, or would prefer a stage for this type of show. (Not required.. but is usually the better option for what we are going for). Amanda Blair brings the keys, flute, and her vocals back into the mix, so we perform material that utilize those assets.
Thanks for reading.. Contact us today about setting up your next event! Weddings, Cookouts, Reunions, Birthdays, Anniversaries, Bike or Car Shows.. you name it! Thanks for reading and enjoy the pics!
Shoutout to Center Street Tavern! 📣
Shoutout to Center Street Tavern! The owners have been so supportive of our efforts with BlairOutLoud DUO. We have lots of events lined up from now through the summer and beyond. But.. let’s crank it up a notch.. St Patty’s Day FULL BAND in action at Center Street.. gonna be a fun one!
Another great week of gigs on the books to kick off the month of March for 2023.
I’m sitting here on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Marietta, GA.. it feels fantastic today.. low humidity, clear skies, maybe 70 degrees. I’m finding a moment to reflect on the week.. and everything that has been happening lately. It’s nice to slow the roll.. get some fresh air.. and reflect on where we’ve been, and what might come next.
Amanda and I played Center Street Tavern again last night. Center Street has been a great place for the DUO to play and thrive. I believe the ownership of this establishment kinda “get” what we are going for with the duo. It’s a little louder and more interactive than my solo thing, but it brings a dynamic that is refreshing with Amanda on the keys and flute, my guitar work, and our harmonized vocals and diverse song selection; it doesn’t demand too much attention, and it doesn’t create too much volume like a full band would.
Of course, I would love to put the BAND in this space regularly. But I think I understand the owner’s interest in placing an engaging acoustic duo act into the mix on Friday or Saturday nights to get some entertainment going, but not blow everyone out on volume every weekend.
But this brings me to a very fun announcement:
We WILL be bringing BlairOutLoud BAND to perform at Center Street on St Patty’s Day, Friday March 17th!!
This is crazy exciting, and one of the first places in Acworth, GA to invite the full band to jam. Believe me.. we are bringing our “A” game, so if you’ve been wanting to see the band in action “closer to home” (for my fans that look disappointed when I tell them where all the band plays around metro Atlanta.. HA), this might be your chance to come check it out!
In addition to Amanda and I, the BlairOutLoud BAND adds a drummer and bass player to complete the line-up:
We will have Darren Goot on the skins.. Darren is a great all-around drummer. Any style, any vibe.. he’s got great timing, great awareness of the vibe, and a great smile behind the kit.
On bass, we’ll have a multi-talented long time good friend and mentor of mine, Gary Stone. Pay attention.. Gary can play is ass off.. sing with the best.. and btw.. you might actually see him on drums down the road filling in for Darren here or there.. WHAT? Yes.. Gary is also a drummer… and also tall.. LOL. Two tall dudes rockin’ the stage.. gotta love it.
So, let me take this last few sentences to give a very hearty THANK YOU for all the support for BlairOutLoud coming out of Center Street Tavern. The owners have been extremely supportive, given us lots of great opportunities to come play and entertain their patrons.
We are forever grateful and we can’t wait to rock the house on St Pattys! Have a great week all.. see you soon!
-Tom
Here’s a highlight reel of one of our recent DUO shows at Center Street. Enjoy!
Wrapping up Feb 2023.. Monster month!
Feb 2023.. one for the books! Wrapping up a great month with a killer last week.. many great acoustic events around town and a slamming electrified Friday and Saturday night! All details and a video inside.. check it out!
BlairOutLoud has had a fantastic start to 2023! January kicked things off, but February really picked up the pace! Here’s a quick review of the past week and some stuff coming up mark your calendars for!
I’ve had lots of great acoustic shows all over town (new spots for me as well) with great responses all around. I think the warmer weather has definitely gotten everyone in a “we are done with Winter, ready for Spring” kind of mood. If you’ve been getting out, supporting venues, and supporting live music.. to you I say.. THANK YOU!
This past week was one of my busiest of the year so far! 5 gigs.. 🤘😝
Starting out at Lola’s in Roswell last Wednesday with a full house.. everything seemed to be coming together for a busy wonderful week.. and it did NOT disappoint. Thursday at Los Magueys Marietta.. I have such an awesome group of regulars that really support me and love when I stop in over there every two weeks.
Friday the TRIO was over at Guston’s Grill in Acworth, GA. We had my friend Derrick Gaddis filling in on bass and he absolutely killed it. The house was packed when we arrived and we had to load-in through the big garage door just to get our equipment inside. It was a little cold and rainy, but the crowd was on fire that night. We threw a whole bunch of stuff at them from Black Crowes, to ZZ Top, to Metallica, and a little Motorhead at the end of the night. They ate it up and we truly had a great time. Great tips and atmosphere.. THANK YOU ACWORTH!
Saturday, my wife joined us as the BAND made our return to perform at Good ‘Ol Days in Cumming, GA. We made a splash there last October, and they invited us back to bring the party!
It’s typical in the 1st set for the room to warm up to who we are and what we are doing there… but 2nd set was bananas! The crowd picked it up a notch, and the video below highlights some of the best parts of the night. Enjoy!
But wait there’s more…
I had one more thing happening on Sunday afternoon.. I debuted my SOLO show at Stillfire Brewery in Suwanee, GA. This was an interesting experience to say the least.
First of all, this area is fantastic. The town of Suwanee has really put a ginormous effort into creating a “town center” area with a park, shops, restaurants and StillFire Brewery all within walking distance.
There were tons of people there.. it was great weather, and this really brought a lot of people out in this area for sure. But.. this Brewery also had a Girl Scout Company there inside selling cookies all day to the patrons.. umm okay. So I played in front of like five 6 year olds dancing around an being crazy for over an hour… Not something I expected at a Brewery 😆.
But it was truly a great day.. people tipped well and the Brewery liked what I did.. gonna try and get some more events there later this year!
Everyone have a fantastic week!
-Tom
Thanks for reading.. Here’s a quick glance at some events coming soon:
Thank You Horsemen's Run!
We recently performed a private event held inside the Horsemen’s Run Neighborhood Community. We set up in a gazebo, jammed for the crowd, played requests, and entertained for their Oktoberfest Gathering. We appreciate this community letting us do this for a second year in a row. Check it out and let us know when we can entertain at your next event!
Last Saturday October 15th, the BlairOutLoud BAND performed for the Horsemen’s Run Neighborhood in Fayetteville, GA for their annual Oktoberfest Gathering. This is the second time that we’ve been asked to be their musical entertainment, and we were happy to set up in their beautiful park area, and we put on a great show!
The Horsemen’s Run gate at the front of the subdivision.
Horsemen’s Run has a huge centralized park in the middle of the neighborhood. They also have a gazebo that faces the park, and this is where the band sets up to play for everyone that comes and gathers for the event.
Horsemen’s Run’s gazebo that faces the park: a great place for photos, gatherings, and live music.
Last year we sat up in front of the gazebo on the softer ground. The thought was that we wanted to be closer to the participants. Although it was a fun night, at the end of the evening as the band was cleaning up and loading out, every cable and a lot of the equipment was wet with dew. It got messy and we quickly regretted that decision.
For this year.. we decided to go ahead and set up fully inside the gazebo. This would be a little easier on the gear, and it made our load-out a lot easier as well. We weren’t as close to the crowd of course. But at the end of the evening, we received many complements on our sets, and several folks commented that it we were at a perfect volume “to rock out to the music”, but also be able to “catch-up with our friends”.
We took a mixed approach to the music that we performed. We started with a few tunes that we’ve done at many recent shows, opening with “Come Together” (with Amanda Blair singing lead), and then followed it up with “We’re An American Band”.. both in the key of D. Both of these songs work to warm things up. All of us sing so we’re also listening for balanced sound levels for instruments and voices. We can usually iron out the kinks in the sound within the first few songs.
After two or three tunes, we opened up the invitation to request tunes from our online song list. Have you seen this yet? If you haven’t checked it out yet, when you get a second, click the button and it will take you to the BAND Tips and Requests Page.
The requests started pouring in, as well as the tips.. and we so appreciate that Horsemen’s Run! We really appreciate your participation and the support that you gave us all night long. We had a blast and look forward to doing it again in ‘23! Below are some more pics of us jamming in the gazebo.
BlairOutLoud BAND left to right: Amanda Blair, Tom Blair, Darren Goot, and Tom Carling
Oktoberfest participants staking out their area to sit and enjoy the show.
BlairOutLoud BAND rockin’ the gazebo!
We always bring an assortment of colorful lights to brighten up the stage area at every show.
Thank you again to Horsemen’s Run for having us again this year to play for your neighborhood! I wanted to include this in the blog because there might be some of you reading this that would love for the band to come play your neighborhood party.. maybe you don’t have an awesome gazebo like Horsemen’s Run LOL.. but we can set up almost anywhere, as long as it’s a hard surface and level.
Hire BlairOutLoud for your musical entertainment at your next event! Thanks all!
Fall Greetings from the BlairOutLoud camp!
We had a great weekend.. beautiful weather here in metro Atlanta, GA. Some killer shows and LOTS coming up this month to highlight.. check it out!
So..
it has been a minute since I posted here. I had big plans to keep this blog updated moving into Spring, and you can look back and see some evidence of that, but summer busy-ness and our day to day personal and performance schedules just took off. It’s about all I could do to just keep up the calendar of events updated.
But I personally have been working to redo my own daily goals and after shifting some priorities around, I’m going to try and post here on Mondays, every Monday if I can, a quick little review of my weekend. I feel like I promote my events as much possible, then I perform, and then just start promoting something else and move on. Sometimes I don’t take the time to look back and reflect on what was great, what was bad, what I could have done better or what I should maintain in the future… It’s a healthy part of the overall plan, and I don’t want to ignore it anymore.
So…
Let’s talk about the weekend!
Left to right: Amanda Blair, Tom Blair, Darren Goot, and Tom Carling. BlairOutLoud BAND performing at Rosati’s Pizza Bar in Cumming, GA on Friday October 7th, 2022.
Friday night October 7th, BlairOutLoud BAND played at Rosati’s in Cumming, GA. We pulled out all the stops.. lined up a killer two-hour solid set. We were having so much fun, the two hours came quick for me, and my bass player Tom Carling was chatting in my ear.. “hey this is last song” and I was surprised.
Amanda Blair plays keys, flute, keytar and takes some lead vocals as well!
The band rocking out with Amanda Blair on flute for one of the tunes.
Amanda Blair blew everyone away (like she always does) on the flute when we played tunes like “Can’t You See”, “ROCK In The USA”, and “Baker Street”. We do a “Foo’s”cover version of Baker Street and instead of saxophone, Amanda plays the flute to “sing” out the main melody in the instrumental theme of the song before each verse.
This show was a blast.. a little low on attendance. The folks that were there tipped us well (Thank you Cumming), and sang along and cheered after each tune. We love playing at Rosati’s and I hope that the ownership with give us some more fun dates in ‘23 to do it again!
On Saturday, October 8th, BlairOutLoud BAND was invited to perform at an MS Society Biking Fundraiser Event on in LaGrange, GA at the Wild Leap Brewing Company. The weather was amazing, and we performed on a huge amphitheater stage. We had a good time rocking for all those in attendance. Shout out to Crestpointe Entertainment Group for getting us this opportunity.
Left to right: Tom Blair and Tom Carling performing at Wild Leap Brewing on Saturday October 8th.
Drummer Darren Goot performing at Wild Leap Brewing on Saturday October 8th.
From left to right: Amanda Blair, Darren Goot, and Tom Blair performing at Wild Leap Brewing on Saturday October 8th, 2022.
The MS Society sponsored a Bike ride fundraiser and Wild Leap Brewing Company hosted the event. (This picture was taken when many people in attendance had walked back up to the main road to greet the last of the final biking participants who were just arriving.)
That evening, the BlairOutLoud TRIO headed back to Marietta, GA to perform on the backside of Johnnie MacCrackens (called The Crack Outback) just off the Marietta Square. This was an insane night.. there were soo many people there rockin’ out with us. We’d like to give a quick shout to our buddy Will Daniel for filling in on drums. It was a total riot.
Left to right: Tom Blair, Will Daniel, and Tom Carling squeezed in the middle of a ton of friends and fans rockin’ out at The Crack Outback.
Friend Nick Jijon sent me this shot from video that he got from the show!
Somewhere in the middle of “Enter Sandman” lol. Tom Carling on bass.
Fill-in drummer Will Daniel
The BlairOutLoud train rolls into another week of killer gigs, including a return to Fayetteville, GA to perform for a neighborhood Oktoberfest Festival that they put on every year. Check out the calendar at the bottom of the HOME page for all the events coming up! Below are a couple of highlighted special things for the next few weeks.. click on the pics to link to the event if you are interested.
Thanks for supporting us around town.. and thanks for the interest in the Private Events! WE LOVE THESE and if you are interested in booking us click the button below and lets set something up!
Upcoming stand-out events for October below.. everything else coming CLICK HERE.
Tickets Here: https://www.livesaferesources.org/event/quebrew2022/
This is a BBQ Fest hosted at Tipping Point Brewery in Blue Ridge, GA. I’ll be there 3-6pm!
Thanks for reading! Leave a comment if you like, and come say hi on social media! Have a great October everyone!
- Tom Blair
Join Tom from BlairOutLoud for a fun evening at Los Magueys Dallas location! Come grab some tacos, killer margaritas, and enjoy some great live acoustic music starting at 6pm! Bi-Weekly Thursdays.. CHECK THE DATES!