Josh Gracin, Los Lonely Boys, and Singing for the President

Still in Syracuse! Very nice. :) We are back in Dunkin Donuts land!!! :) LOVE me some of those flatbreads.

Got some bad news and some GREAT news.

Bad news first... which isn't THAT bad.
We had a show cancel on us today. This is the first college show that has had to cancel, which I think is pretty amazing. It just makes me thankful for how lucky we have been so far. I know a lot of school's have gone through major budget cuts in thi crazy economy. And considering how much we have been working - well, we have been very blessed so far. We had one club that closed their doors after we played and never paid us. We were actually the last band that played there. But other than that.... well... and that one club in Dallas that just blatantly stiffed us (but that was a character thing.... not a "we are really hurting" thing)... I am just thankful!

Now on to the good news. Which is TWO different items!

We are opening for Josh Gracin again!!!!

AND

We are opening for Los Lonely Boys, too!!!


I had all the information written out, and then I realized I better keep it hush hush as to where both of these events are happening. I am not sure if they have been announced yet, but I am SOOOO excited to be opening for these 2 artists. We have gotten to open for Josh before and he puts on such an incredible live show, and I feel like we have come so far since the last time we opened for him. That was in Elmira, New York and Miguel didn't get to play in that show, so now he will get to! He was in Chile visiting family - that was a bit of a last minute show - but Charlie was still in the band, so he went with us on that trip.

Ahh. I remember that so well. The night after the show was where I got the email in the Suburban on my cell phone about the President gig. I got an email asking if anyone was interested in singing at this "White House" thing. I was SO excited and I remember emailing my agent at 1 in the morning saying YES! Of COURSE I am interested.


I sent in an mp3 of singing the "National Anthem" and the next thing I knew - I had an invitation to sing at the White House.

I actually have a couple of pics from that I have never put up online. They sent these to me after the event, and it took me this long to scan them onto my computer. :)- (Thanks for that scanner for Christmas James!)

This is one of my favorite stories....
I was in a VIP reception before the event started. There were 50 people in this room and it was mostly A-listers :) I got to meet Charlie Gibson, Katie Couric, Tiki Barber, Condolezza Rice, and of course The President and First Lady. After about 30 minutes of schmoozing, it was time for the event to start.
They escorted everyone out of the room except me, President Bush, The First Lady, some photographers and Secret Service. The President would walk out first and then I would be introduced to sing "God Bless America". We had a few minutes alone in the room.... you can imagine how I was feeling!!! Someone asked me if we had gotten an official picture yet.

Right before we took the picture, Mrs. Bush took my arm and said, "Georgie, Natalie is singing The National Anthem tonight". President Bush said, "No she's not. She's singing "America the Beautiful". We smiled and posed for a picture



Then I looked at them both, put my hand on my chest, smiled and said "God Bless America" : )- It was so funny. We all 3 busted out laughing. I'm so glad they thought it was funny – I didn't want it to look like I was "correcting" them, but it seemed to me to be more awkward NOT to say anything….


I thought it was SO cool they captured us laughing right after all of that happened.

If you are interested... I just posted my entire blog on here so you could read the whole thing.... Previously it has only been on myspace.... but I can't "link" you to that one :)

Singing For the President Blog


Peace, Love, Fiddle,
~nat