Yesterday we were hired to play on a partyboat from 3 to 7 out on Galveston Bay. It was a charity organization that likes to celebrate Mardi Gras. So they all show up dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow and his mates, and they flew a jolly roger from the back of the paddlewheeler. The pirates brought big bags of beads to throw to people in passing boats and to the pedestrians on the Kemah boardwalk. The boat launches and we get started playing our set. We are doing a Mardi Gras beat and the Reverend is making up lyrics as usual. The boat captain makes a pass by the boardwalk and the pirates start throwing beads, and children are running along trying to catch them, etc. It was exciting and the Reverend is chanting "get those beads, catch you some beads..." and all is well. So it was so much fun that the captain turns the boat around to make another pass at the boardwalk. We are set up in the back of the boat on the top deck, so we can see what's going on fairly well. The people on the shore see us coming back and start running to get into a good bead catching position. Suddenly the shore looks a little too close and Coach says to Reverend, "We're going to hit the dock!" So the Reverend starts chanting on the microphone (you see, we never stopped playing) "we're gonna hit that dock, we're gonna hit that dock, captain look out for the Kemah Boardwalk!"
So all of the people on the shore whose faces were so joyful just moments before were running away from us in horror with expressions of fear and confusion.
Bam! We smacked the bulkhead at a 30 degree angle snapping the boardwalk planks like pencils and toothpicks. The Reverend changed his Mardi Gras mantra to, "We smacked that dock, we hit the dock, Oh lord, the Kemah Boardwalk!" and all of the pirates roared with laughter! The boat careened and floated to the other bank and wrecked into it also! A woman of Ida Red's description flew forward and rolled onto the floor. Some man came up to our deck and was screaming, "get down! Everybody get down on the floor now!" like it was a hold-up and he was Billy the Kid. Now at that point, we decided that it would be a good idea to finally stop playing.
Another boat came to taxi the revelers back to our original launch site. Tick programmed the wreck location on his gps as "S.O.S." and Coach used it to bring the truck back to the wreck site, where we packed our gear up and fled back to normalcy, down in the Montrose.