Haunted Halloween Cruise on the William D Evans paddle boat at the Bahai Resort Hotel, Saturday Oct 13, 2018

Since we came to town for the amazing Jackets/Schizophonics/Loon show on Friday night, we decided to spend the weekend in SD and my amazing wife found this wacky diversion for our Saturday. Put on by the Six String Society, this cruise was a combination of live rock'n'roll music, dancin', drinkin' and costumed mania!

Neither of us had ever taken a paddle boat ride through the SD harbor, so, although we skipped the earlier dinner, we got in line early to catch these festivities. The cruise itself lasted 4 hours, with bands playing simultaneously on two floors, with the top, third level set aside for getting some air, resting your weary bones and watching the San Diego skyline go by.

Four bands played 100 minutes sets throughout the cruise, with opening slots by Casey Hensley, a soul/blues-belter (kinda reminded us a bit of Shanda and the Howlers), who dressed like Jessica Rabbit and was constantly in danger of falling out of her dress! Her backing band was made up of hot-shot players, including an excellent female guitarist and, at times, a wailin' sax player. Fun stuff!

At the same time as Casey, in the smaller, 1st floor room, was the turbaned Farmers (an offshoot of the Beat Farmers was our guess?), who got the packed room twistin'n'boogalooin' to a great set of 60's garage rock. Solid players all around and a really fun list of songs, with obvious numbers like the singalong "Gloria" mixed in with more obscurities and even some blues-y groovers, when they brought up a female friend to belt out a tune or two.

The masked marauders, the Creepy Creeps have their own brand of garage/frat rock in the style of the Mummies (without being quite as sloppy and aggressive as the bandaged ones), with a wild stage act that includes a coffin-enclosed keyboard being thrown around the stage while being played. Their scantily-clad go-go dancers enticed the gentlemen in the crowd while the band took turns berating the audience and rockin' the crowd!

Back upstairs were the Sleepwalkers, who performed a set of somewhat traditional Mexican standards with a rock'n'roll edge. The stand-up bass and reverbed guitar gave a rockabilly/blues feel to the proceedings, while the wailin' sax added some r'n'b flavor and the drums rocked it all up. The singer was perfect for the job and added percussion on top of the tunes. Really well done, tight, and fun and the room was packed with dancers for their entire time on stage!

This was a truly fun'n'different event that got everyone into the Halloween spirit early. Unfortunately, since we came from Vegas, we didn't bring costumes, although it seemed like some of the tourists staying at the Bahai thought we were in costume anyway! In any case, I understand that this was the first Halloween cruise and it certainly seemed like a swingin' success! Hopefully, they will do more!