Call us now:
Already Gone News
The Band Sherpa Report: Live from Bolivar
Behind the Scenes | Camp Margaritaville Crystal Beach, September 26, 2026
Last Saturday night, somewhere between 800 and 1,000 of you gave summer one hell of a sendoff at Paradise Park at Camp Margaritaville Resort Crystal Beach on the Bolivar Peninsula. If you were there, you could tell the guys were having a blast. A lot of that is thanks to our crew. Let’s take a look behind the curtain and see what it takes to get this show on the road.
A production like this takes a lot of work and a lot of gear: lights, hazers, mic stands, miles of cable, and risers that each weigh a metric ton. All of it lives in cases that get loaded in and out at every show, and our crew does it with a smile. Every. Single. Time.
Meet the crew
Gavin on lights, Damian on sound.
That’s Gavin, our production manager, on the left running lights, next to Damian on sound.
Jonny, our newest crew member, is our stage manager, except in this photo, where he’s fan-boying through “Desperado.”
Even our manager pitches in as crew, too, mostly because she walks around with rolls of spike and gaffer tape hanging off her belt, and she knows how to use them. (Spike tape marks where things go. Gaffer tape holds down anything that shouldn’t move. Sometimes that’s a light fixture. Sometimes it’s a band member’s lips.)
You might be wondering why there’s a photo of Jay and Paul when we’re talking about crew. Sure, on stage they’re our rhythm section but behind the scenes, Jay plays ringmaster, and Paul earned honorary crew status by saving the day. More on that in a minute.
The morning everything broke down
Paul got to Crystal Beach on Thursday, and Jay, Gavin, and Danielle rolled in Friday night, so Saturday morning should have been a piece of cake. Texas Live Sound plans like pros, and our gear was due well ahead of load-in. The four of us were handling last-minute stuff like marketing and coordinating everyone’s arrivals.
Then the phone rang. The truck pulling our gear had engine trouble and was stuck on the side of the road. Ack! After a brief moment of panic, we checked which vehicles we had on site. Paul’s truck was the only one that could pull the band trailer. He’d promised his granddaughter a morning at the beach, but he went to rescue our gear instead. (We all felt terrible that he let down a five-year-old, but she turned out to be a tough negotiator and came away with a pool date for Sunday morning. We’re considering putting her in charge of our contracts.)
Paul and Gavin hooked up the trailer and got the gear and crew to the venue fairly uneventfully. We say “fairly” because somewhere along the way, Damian called them. While he was waiting for the Galveston ferry, his truck overheated. He opened the radiator cap too soon, burned his hand, and lost the cap for good measure. Paul and Gavin took a quick poll and agreed that Jay’s stress level was high enough already. He did not need to know.
Damian made it to the show in plenty of time. We still don’t know whether he found the cap or stuffed a rag in it Molotov-style and drove on.
Even with everything going wrong behind the scenes, everyone was in place well before load-in and the show started right on time with everyone in high spirits. And that, friends, is why we have the best crew.
Catch the next one. The crew’s already loading up for the next round:
