Here we go! My February...
Thursday, February 5, 2026: Terre Haute, IN. We rode the bus overnight from Atlanta, and woke up in snowy Indiana. I took one of those NyQuil tablets (still trying to shut down my cold), so I slept great.
Terre Haute still had about a foot and a half of snow on the ground, and the high was in the mid 20s. We were at a small college concert hall (Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology). Nice place. The local crew was slow (in every possible way), so the set up took a long time, and some of our lighting stuff had to be abandoned because of time constraints.
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| Pizza Hut for lunch |
After setting up all my stuff and eating the pizza, there wasn't much to do, so I walked to the student rec center, and they were cool about letting me run on the treadmill for an hour, but once I got in, I discovered that they had an indoor track, so I did that instead. Eighth of a mile distance, in case you're wondering.
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| dinner! more pizza |
The gig was ok. I guess I haven't been playing that much at home, and my chops felt kind of weird, kind of fuzzy.
We walked on to Fernando by ABBA, kind of an oblique reference to I.U.'s football season, except that Kip started it from the beginning instead of hitting it at the chorus, so it made even less sense.
The Africa solo was fine. I tried to use visualization to make it happen. Almost back to normal.
Wheel of Chorus tonight: Turn Your Love Around, Fooled Around and Fell in Love, and Golden Girls.
The crew bus really got screwed here. They were parked on the sloped driveway down to the loading dock of the venue, and it was so severe that they had to sleep backwards in their bunks (heads uphill). When we finally drove away at 6:30 AM, the bus got stuck on the ice, so they were all awake as the drivers tried to get it out of there.
Friday, February 6, 2026: Nashville, IN. The drive to get here took less than two hours. A little further south, so it was in the 30s for the high temperature, but there was still a foot of snow on the ground.
I met up with a college friend for lunch, and we ended up at a Thai restaurant that was not just I.U. basketball themed--it was Bob Knight themed. Very, very weird. The food was good, though.
I ran at the YMCA next door on a very noisy treadmill. Better than trying to negotiate outside, though.
The food here was not so great (it was catered). They had orzo for lunch (not bad), but the only thing I would eat at dinner was potatoes and salad, so I had some of the leftover pasta, too. I also had some after the gig.
Fun show here! Wheel of Chorus: Baby Come Back, Purple Rain, and Easy. My face and hands came back around finally, and I had good solos on Lowdown and Just the Two of Us.
February 7, 2026: Nashville, TN. We played The Ryman again, and it was really cool again. Things took a while to get going, so I walked to the nearby food court and got Indian food, which was great, and then ate all the fruit in the green room.
After I got my stuff set up, there was plenty of time to go for a run and warm up, and there are enough dressing rooms that I could play and not bother everybody.
Dinner was lame. The only thing I could get interest in was the potatoes, so I had peanut butter, a banana, and two apples in the green room. Also, I hate the multi colored fingerling roasted potato thing. Knock it off.
The special guest for this show was going to be Walter Egan (who lives in Franklin, TN these days), but he ended up getting a better gig where he would be the main act, so he bailed.
Another fun one, and we sold out The Ryman for a second time. Wheel of Chorus: Fooled Around and Fell in Love, Baby Come Back, and Careless Whisper.
While we packing up after the show, one of the older local crew guys asked me if Monkeyboy was getting paid by the note. Not only is that a lame joke, but Monkeyboy is a great guitar player and we just sold out your venue again. Get back to packing up our video wall and keep your opinion to yourself!
I took a quick shower and put my bags on the bus. Everybody else was either hanging out with friends in the green room, or gone to Robert's.
Most of us went across the alley for the after party at Robert's Western World, which was packed on a Saturday night. There were lots of fans with the band sprinkled in, but after midnight, I suddenly became aware that I was the only guy from the YRR still in the room, and had to make a hasty escape back to the bus.
When I got back, Greg was in the driver's seat (on the phone with our driver), because we had some kind of air pressure leak, and the front of the bus was sagging, making it impossible to get the door open all the way--it dragged on the sidewalk. They got it figured out.
We woke up at 6:30 AM back in Atlanta.
Thursday, February 26, 2026: Houston, TX. The next leg of touring began here. We put whatever on the bus on Tuesday evening, and they left the next day. We flew out and reunited with the buses this morning.
I was really nervous all day about this gig. I guess it was all performance oriented, mostly still thinking about Africa. I got a Lyft to the airport (cheaper than ten days of parking at the airport), and I was mildly carsick for most of the ride—still nerves, I think. Even sitting at the gate, I was still a mess.
The flight was full of cheerleaders and parents, though I couldn’t figure out whether they were heading to some sort of competition or returning home. Once I got on the flight, I was able to go back to sleep, and I think I slept for probably three quarters of the trip, but I kept having dreams (nightmares?) that I was peeing in my pants, and I kept waking up to check (thankfully it was not). I finally got up and used the restroom, eliminating that threat, but I couldn’t go fully back to sleep, as I got focused on the cheerleader behind me with the pretty serious cough, and I wondered if she was wearing a mask or even just covering her mouth, and I should probably wake up and put a mask on for safety, but I really just wanted to go back to sleep.
I survived all that, we got cars to the Houston House of Blues, and away we went. I dropped my bags and went to get some lunch. There was plenty of time as the lighting/video stuff seemed to be coming together pretty slowly, and the only place to build it was where the risers would be.
Eventually, the riser was in place, and I got my gear all set up, so I changed clothes and went for a run.
Pretty easy effort—Houston was not too hot today. On the way back from my turnaround point, I came across a guy trying to push his car out of the middle of the street where he’d run out of gas. The two of us got it out of the way, but he had no gas, no gas can, and no money, so I ran back down the street, bought the gas can, bought a gallon of gas, and ran it back to him.
I got in a good warmup in a back hallway behind the freight elevator, and ate a giant fake meat hamburger, and then it was time to go!
All things considered, the gig went well. I had lots of nerves until we got past Africa. My Nord (bottom keyboard) got weirdly quiet, so I pulled the cable out to reseat it, and I had to take my sunglasses off to put it back, and when I put them back on, I managed to separate my in ear monitor from the in ear cable! There was no time to fix it, so I played four or five songs with only one ear working. I couldn’t plug it back in myself—my eyes couldn’t focus on something that close—so I though maybe I would have to play the rest of the show like this, but I had a spot in the first verse and chorus of Lowdown where I could run off to the guitar techs for help. Taylor tried, but he couldn’t get them back together in the dark, and so I had to run back on stage. A few songs after that (maybe Pina Colada?), I went back to guitar world, and Bruce was able to plug them back in with Taylor holding the flashlight (though Bruce first plugged it back in backwards, so I had to race back to him and have him flip the earpiece).
My solos were ok. I’ve decided on Just the Two of Us to play more of the chords, instead of basically just playing F minor over the whole thing. My first attempt was decent, but not fabulous.
Packing up took a long time. I stopped to say hi to some friends and ended up signing stuff and taking several pictures.
I think we were all pretty tired from a day of travel and then the show, so everybody went to bed early.
One more random thought: you’re not a touring musician until you’ve opened your suitcase and rearranged your clothes on a street corner in a major city.
Friday, February 27, 2026: San Antonio, TX. I slept pretty late, finally crawling out of bed at 9:45 AM.
The Aztec Theatre is pretty cool, but the sometimes they have trouble spelling the name of our band. I've been told that our contract states that there is a fine if our name is misspelled.
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| this was in 2023 |
I went for a run before lunch, and it was pretty hot and no shade (plus some rolling hills). Significantly slower than the day before.
I had Indian food for lunch.
I came back to the Aztec via the riverwalk.
I set up my gear and noodled for a long time before and after soundcheck.
Indian food again! for dinner. A different restaurant, though.
I checked on the Alamo. It’s still there.
Another nervous day, and lots of attempts at meditation, breath control, and visualization going on. Other than that, I can't really think of anything to say about this one. Good crowd! San Antonio is getting the hang of us.
This evening’s Wheel of Chorus: Biggest Part of Me, Lonesome Loser, and Purple Rain.
Saturday, February 28, 2026: Austin, TX. Austin City Limits! What a cool room to play, especially when it’s packed with 2,000 people!
I went for a run around the lake and saw lots of dogs and pretty girls.
Lunch was catered.
There were enough dressing rooms available that I was able to commandeer one as a practice room for most of the afternoon, and so I was able to play a lot before the show. I even got a chance to go into catering when it was empty and play on their grand piano.
Today was peak day for two finger issues--my left thumb had split open...
...and the big cyst on my right index finger was so swollen that it hurt to try and bend it at the first knuckle. I thought about booking it over to a clinic to see if they could drain it, but I wasted too much time, so I ran it under hot water and pressed on it to try and get it to break up.
After dinner (also catered), I went for a walk around the block.
I was nervous—it was too many people to look at for the first hour of the show, and then I finally settled into it, and then it was fun.
Wheel of Chorus: Purple Rain, Rich Girl (this guy came up, did "the worm" on stage, spun the wheel, and left without ever talking to Nick), and the third contestant spun bankrupt, but she asked for Careless Whisper, so we played that (ooooff my horn was really cold and flat in the video I saw).
We had some really great tacos after the show.
While we were sleeping on the buses on the street in Austin, we woke up to the sounds of police sirens. There was a mass shooting at a bar a few blocks away.
Sunday, March 1, 2026: Ft Worth, TX. The Curse of Ft Worth lives on! This time, we were driving/sleeping on the interstate from Austin, when the bus slammed on the brakes and swerved violently, and I thought for sure we would all be slamming into the walls of our bunks momentarily. It was such a hard deceleration that all of the curtains on our bunks opened (which was really weird).
We did not hit anything, and I waited to see what would happen next. Nothing. After several minutes of lying in the dark, I thought that someone should get up and see if our driver was ok, in case something had happened to him to cause this. Greg was already up, cleaning up some of the stuff that had fallen off the counter. Our driver was nowhere, but then we saw a car down the road in front of us, flipped up on its side, and our driver was checking on them.
Sooooo…somebody was driving a hundred miles an hour up the interstate, and he came up behind somebody going a good bit slower. He swerved too late, hit the guard rail, hit the slower car, and barrel rolled into the median. The slower car also rolled, coming to a stop on its side fifty yards in front of us.
THE CURSE OF FT WORTH! Two years ago, all of our gear was stolen here. Last year, our bus died here, and the replacement bus drove to Houston by accident. This year, we almost had a wreck on the interstate in the middle of the night.
Anyway, we made it. I had my coffee and then went ahead and did my run before it got too hot.
Lunch: the Fort Worth Stockyards are not a great place for vegetarian food, but I did find a place with a good veggie burger. Spare this poor steer!
By the time I got back to the venue, it was about time to set up my gear, so I did that and then went out the back door to warm up on flute.
After a brief soundcheck, I spent about an hour in the room playing saxophone to get that going, and then went back and picked up another veggie burger from the same place. Ft Worth is weird--everybody was out pretending to be a cowboy with the hat and the boots and jeans. It was a little ridiculous.
The cyst on my finger seemed to be imploding, or something. The blister in the middle caved in, saving my music career.
This place...it's a medium sized concrete bunker, and it sounds like it, and it's dark, and there's no vibe. There's got to be a better place for us to play.
The gig was another good one. Africa was almost perfect (or close enough), but most importantly, my nerves are finally letting go, so I should have it back to a comfortable performance pretty soon, I think/hope. My other solos were good, and I quoted The Eyes of Texas in Lowdown, and I thought it was slick even if nobody caught it.
Wheel of Chorus: Easy (I made the same mistake at the key change that I've been messing up for a year--it doesn't come around often enough for me to remember the correct chord voicing), Golden Girls, and Careless Whisper.
We're flying tomorrow, so I had to split up some of my gear (saxophones, etc), into my cases that will fit on the plane, and then put extra clothes back on the bus...it took a minute.
Everybody took Lyfts to our hotel by the airport. Our driver was from Nepal, and Peter Olson asked him a bunch of questions and he played us some Nepalese music as we zoomed across the metroplex.
The other guys beat us to the hotel, but it didn't matter because we all got to wait for the hotel desk clerk to catch up.
