Peoria, Il

I am getting ready for bed in a gorgeous room at the Pere Marquette
Hotel in downtown Peoria, Il. This place is beautiful. And cold. Very
cold. :)

We played another event for BASF tonight :) And Lord, they know how to
have a good time!!! They definitely lived up to their previous
reputation from the gig we played in Colorado Springs at the Broadmoor
Hotel. (Only, we missed you Adam!!!) When we arrived, we were scoping
out the venue and they had posters ALL OVER this hotel! It was crazy
to walk into a hotel and just my picture plastered everywhere. But
they really did it up here! It was kind of funny though.... the ratio
of men to women was more intense than Berklee (where I went to
College). And it is pretty hard to get a room full of guys out on the
dance floor :) At one point in the evening I saw 8 ladies in the room
(compared to the hundreds of men), but the ones that did get out on
the dance floor CUT A RUG! I will have TONS of pics, but I'll have to
wait until I can get them from Sue, who somehow became "photographer"
tonight :)

So two stories that are a "must tell" from the evening.

Story #1:
This happened about halfway into our last set :) Hootie was singing a
song, I think we were playing some Hank, Jr. And I was all into sawing
away on my fiddle. I look up and realize there is a man trying to get
my attention at the front of the stage. I bend down (as I am still
playing) to hear what he has to say.
He says, "Are you the singer?"
Me: "Well, Yes I am!"
Guy: "Awww, man! We JUST got here - and we came just to hear you sing,
but I guess we missed it!"
Ummm..... dude... we are in MID SONG! You are talking to me WHILE I am
performing. :) Needless to say... there was an open bar here. Who
knows. Maybe he had been there all night and JUST realized I was the
girl on all the posters. MADE my night. :)

Story #2:
Not quite as funny at the time.... But I've laughed a lot since this
happened earlier
So we are loading out and I am trying to take my first load out to the
car. I have my fiddle amp with box of cds and some drinks stacked on
top of it. There wasn't an elevator close to us, so I was trying to
get this on the escalator. Ummm... I THOUGHT I had it all on the step.
Not so much. MY amp tips over as I am going down the escalator, and
the box of cds falls backwards as I am trying to hold the amp up with
all my might. Hootie gets on behind me with a huge speaker and the two-
wheeler. When I get to the bottom of the escalator - 99 cds (I had
just taken inventory) and cokes, sprites, and waters galore are caught
at the edge of the escalator. And Hootie is coming fast. I push my amp
which wheels straight into a couch and am frantically trying to move
all the cds out of the way. If Hootie and that huge, awkward speaker
(it is about 5 feet tall) get to the bottom..... all 99 cds are most
likely crushed. Hoot starts trying to move up a step up at a time,
against the flow of the downward escalator, but he can't go faster
than the stairs are moving... so he was coming really quick. I've
never moved that fast in my life. And I think Hootie got the hardest
and toughest work out of his life!!!! Somehow, not a single cd had a
scratch. It was amazing. But I felt like taking a nap after that.

I feel like taking a nap after telling that story.

I should probably just go to bed. It is almost 3am.

We drive to Vermont tomorrow. Whew. That makes me want to take a lot
of naps.

Yeah. It's bed time.

Peace, love, fiddle