sharon and i rolled into austin, texas last week and opened the first of the last 3 shows for jonny lang (photo on www.myspace.com/scotsaxsongs). we played the palace and it was just that. beautiful balconys filled with folks ready for a night of music out on the town.
we were lucky enough to play for a thousand of those folks. i always dreamed of playing shows like the one's you see dylan playing in those grainy black and white shakey documentaries.
this was that place. dramatic stage, lights way, way above our heads and complete silence while performing the songs. after the songs, a rush of thunderous applause. it's all i ever wanted. well, that and a song as good as elton john's "your song".
the next night, houston. house of blues this night. another 1,000 to 1,500 packed in. but this time it was in more of a drinking establishment. they also decided to push us and mister lang's set a little later. so when we finally took the stage, the crowd was audibly buzzed and visibly hungry for lang and his loud rockin' blues band (which includes sonny t, a guitar player who grew up with prince and played in his band in the early nineties). coincidentally someone shouted out "prince" when i walked onstage. now, years ago that woulda bugged the hell outta me, but now (?) i was g-d damn psyched! i still got it folks.
after sharon sang her first line into the mic, the crowd changed their tune and gave us the love. there was still a low roar of chatter eminating from the bar way back in the room but i was told by the house of blues roadies "they were that way for bob dylan when he played here last year". wha? hoo? dylan played here last year? "yep, he was awesome...but they talked anyway"
did ya meet him?? "nope, noone did. he came in with massive security, played and left with massive security".
damn. dylan, huh? cool.
we got off stage sweaty and a little thrown off. austin was a dream show, houston was a noisy one. what they hell's dallas gonna be like?
the best of the 3, that's what it was to be.
the house of blues in dallas looked exactly like the one in houston but to our suprise the crowd was totally different to us. instead of shouting "prince" to me...or "jonny" to sharon, they shouted "where have you been??" after sharon started singing. and not only did they give us some huge applause, but they even cheered after certain parts of the songs that i guess they felt deserved cheering.
wow, now that feels good.
today was my birthday and i spent it in birmingham, alabama. my old friend mike p. joined in on the fun and the three of us oddly enough jammed in one of those guitar center kinda stores (though this one was more of a mom and pop version). sharon on bass (!) mike on electric guitar and i played the electronic drum pads. we were horrible of course but for some reason we attracted attention and the owner asked if we were gigging in town. ouch. they must really have some awful bands there if they thought we were good enough to have a gig!
some guy wanted my contact info for "production" purposes. huh? i don't know if he wants to produce me or wants me to produce him or maybe he's hungy and wants some fresh produce.
next stop, a great used cd and book store called...something like.."charlemagne". one of my fave places around. i got a great import box set of the bob dylan theme time raadio hour shows where he playes his favorites. this'll be great for the road in which we have many miles to go to get to charleston, south carolina where we will play on tv, radio and headline our own gig.
but tonight, atlanta it is.
a good birthday.
