Oh What A Night

Whew. Haven't been this stressed out in a long time. All is well now,
but tonight was rough.
Tim had an emergency and had to dash back to Nashville this morning.
One of our good friends, Chris Griffiths, subbed out SIX shows to come
to our rescue (he had triples at Tootsies today and tomorrow). It was
pretty amazing. But he had a gig in Nashville last night, so he played
his show until 3am... He was at the car rental place at 7:00 am when
they were supposed to open... But no one was there until 8:15. Our
show started tonight at 5:30.

It was rough because this is our first time playing at the Beer Barrel
in Put-in-Bay, and though we were doing the best we could... It was a
pretty harsh first impression of us. Chris gunned it the whole way
here. And I can't believe he made it when he did.

We were supposed to start at 5:30 and at 6:15 the sound guys asked
Miguel and me to just go on and do something... Anything... I was a
wreck pacing and fidgeting for hours. I'm still pretty wound up from
the whole thing.

But being an entertainer is what I do. And on stage was the only time
I was calm tonight. I played Orange Blossom Special and then Miguel and
I played "Standing My Ground" and then Chris walked in!!!!
Woooohoooo!!!! Poor guy - I kept calling songs and keys... he's never
played with us and he had never played half the songs that we played
on stage tonight. But there was no way to talk through or rehearse!!!
And the show turned out great. There weren't a lot of people, but the
ones that were there were AWESOME!!! And we're all getting up tomorrow
and rehearsing!! We play here until Thursday. Tim will be back by Wed.

So all things considered, it was a good night. I wouldn't EVER want to
relive this night... But... You know...

I just hope we can redeem ourselves with the club. We will be
ridiculously OVERLY PUNCTUAL the rest of the week. I know the club
can't be too happy with us right now. But some things just can't be
helped.
And I will say - Chris is such a nut on stage that we all had a blast
playing tonight. There's definitely a bit of magic that happens when
everyone has to pull together like that. It might not have been our
cleanest and most perfect show, but it was about as honest and real as
it gets!!!

Tomorrow is another day. And we are on a beautiful island.

Now? I sleep. (well, after I find a spot with service to send this
email) ;)

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
nat

Sent from my iPhone