St. Andrews Know How To Party

We were back at St. Andrews Presbyterian College - one of our favorite campuses from the last few years!

We were close to the same place, but this time we actually got to play out by the lake because the weather cooperated! And the best is that it is called Lake Ansley!!!! Just like my sweet little niece, Ansley. And Lake Ansley is filled with tons of turtles that are constantly popping their heads up, hopeful for a little morsel :) I spent quite a bit of time hanging out with the turtles after the show.

They had a cook-out set up for the students, David opened the show, and it was another gorgeous day.

The owner of the last RED Peace, Love, Fiddle t-shirt from 2008!


My first beer can signage!


Sweet girls that helped us out all day!






My fiddles by Lake Ansley


And my own sweet Ansley :)


Now, I'm gonna hang out with the guys :)

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

I Have A Wise Twin

James and I definitely have "Clueless" on in the hotel right now. I completely forgot that Paul Rudd was in this movie!! :)

And I definitely think that I need to bring back "Thigh highs". Those should NEVER go out of style.


We played at the University of Virginia - Wise tonight. Tonight was the first time in my life I was relieved we do NOT have a tour bus. We had to go so slow up these crazy windy roads along the side of the mountain to get to the school. And no matter how slow we went, it wasn't slow enough! It was intense.

The campus was beautiful, though! We were playing on a beautiful ledge up against a little pond. We were part of their "welcome week" :) Can't believe they are already back in school!!!

Everyone thought the girl on the left looked just like me :) She's my Wise-Twin.


My protector:


The guys responsible for getting us here!!! And THANK YOU for chasing down those extension chords and making sure we were "grounded".



More awesome people we met today!









Good luck in the upcoming school year!

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

University of Texas San Antonio

I am sitting in the front seat of the Suburban, it's nearly 2am, we're watching "Lord of the Rings" (well... James and I are listening and Hootie and Miguel are both sleeping through it) and my belly is full of Jimmy John's. God Bless JJ's for staying open until 3am. It was sure a life saver tonight! And it wasn't the first time!

Let me start at the beginning of the day to catch you up :)

We left Randy and Stacie's place this morning to head to San Antonio. I hated to say goodbye to their 3 dogs and 3 cats. They have some of the best pets ever - so sweet and friendly. We ate at a Schlotzsky's Deli. The guys had never eaten there - but I think we definitely discovered a new restaurant to add into the frequent rotation! MMMMmmmm.

We hit quite a bit of traffic in Austin.... which we expected.... but then we hit more.... and more.... We were pulling into campus RIGHT on time, but who knew that UTSA has TWO capuses in San Antonio? Ummm.... not us! So once we thought we had arrived, we figured out we had gone to the wrong place - crazy confusion with the street names and GPS. It was all good though. We still had PLENTY of time to get to our soundcheck. PLUS the soundcrew was incredible! They were there to unload the entire trailer, and they already had the entire stage set up. They put a LOT of work into this show. First to arrive and last to leave - these guys always have the longest night in the biz!

They got a great recording of the show and let me listen to a bit of it. They're gonna send it to us later :) Can't wait!

The stage was awesome. UTSA has a beautiful campus, and the festival they had going on was so much fun! Candy apples, and popcorn RIGHT in front of the stage (the aroma was amazing the whole night)

WHOA interjection: we JUST passed the Schlotzsky's in which we ate this afternoon :) Crazy.

Back to the gig. The entire quad had games, balloon animals, food, goodies, and then our big ole honkin stage. The whole area was packed the whole night. It looked more like a street festival than a college event. It was REALLY cool.

Here's the AWESOME group that put on the show!


These 2 sisters were 'cuttin a rug' the WHOLE show. They even recruited other kids in the crowd to dance, too. :)


Speaking of dancing.... I LOVE being in Texas. There are ALWAYS dancers here. People were two-stepping, line-dancing, swing-dancing, ummm... freestyle of course, too. And one kid was even doing some crazy gumby-like, almost break dancing during part of the show. The photographers went CRAZY on him :)

I had my first "Street sign" signing! It says "Mercer St." on the back... which is coincidentally her last name... probably why she bought it... you know, if I were to GUESS a reason. :)


These guys sat in front the WHOLE show. And they even busted out a lighter during "Angel".


A REAL LIFE college student :) I just love that this guy had his backpack on the whole time, and had his book in hand for the pic!


So UTSA was gorgeous, the breeze was constant so it wasn't too hot, and the people were wonderful.

On to TYLER! Only 3 hours to go!

Peace, Love, Fiddle,
~natalie

Virginia Wesleyan College

We played Virginia Wesleyan tonight. This is the second school so far that we have returned to for a 2nd show! They had a huge Seafood dinner for everyone along with a DJ and well.... US! SO fun :)

It was a GORGEOUS day. Couldn't have really gotten any prettier. Not a cloud in the sky. 70 degrees. Yeah. Awesome day for an outdoor event!!! It was the PERFECT day to model my new clothes I got in Providence on our sleepy shopping spree :) I usually don't like to shop... I either don't find much I want or I refuse to pay the ridiculous price tags on the things that I do want... BUT NOT IN PROVIDENCE!!! We found a Delia's in the mall... which I had never seen an actual store of! I used to get the catalogues as a kid.... but never seen a store. So I sported my "ManEater" graphic tee along with my fun crazy jeans :) Sorry to be so girlie right now... but I was REALLY excited!

These were the girls that took care of us ALLLLLL day and night!!!


This was one of the Deans!!! I love that she came out. She's a big country fan. I actually met and talked with the President of the school for quite a while at soundcheck. It is always so cool to get to meet the President and Deans of a renown School like Virginia Wesleyan College!


This is WAC - they are the group of students that put on this event :)

I am proofreading and just made myself laugh out loud.... sounds like I am getting all ghetto on y'all. "This is WAC! Fo Shizzle"

And here we are in my favorite GIANT CHAIR!!!!!! I was SOOOO hoping these huge chairs would be back this year. I love them.


This is Scott. We have been talking back and forth for WEEKS now on facebook about this show. He was gonna rally the front row lawn chair peeps... he ended up being stuck in 4 hours of traffic and being late.... but he made it for most of the show!!! It was really cool to see him after talking and corresponding so much. Felt like we were old friends :) I love facebook.


These girls ran my merch table for me during the show. They were SO sweet. I had no idea they were gonna be there, so we didn't get to talk before the show. They had to find everything out themselves.. Me and my 3 crazy bags of merchandise.... But they figured it all out and were so helpful!


Hannah and Carter were Adorable. Hannah plays piano... but "when she's done with that, she's gonna start playing the violin" :) Pretty cool, huh? She's got a plan! Obviously - there were a few cameras going here. FOCUS NAT!


I love what I do. And I love when we are asked back to a campus to do "what we do" a second time around. We had a lot of fun today. I just love being outdoors. It's good for the soul.

Now we head to Texas. But instead of staying in random hotels the next 2 nights... drumroll PLEASE!!! We get to stay at HOME in Nashville!!! LOVE it when it works out that way :) Miguel and I were trying to figure out if he left his car at our apartment on this last trip... but neither of us could actually remember leaving Nashville. That's funny...

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

P.S. We ate at Red Robin for dinner. Just like we did last year... but there was no carnival in the parking lot next door like last. But it mattered not, for Red Robin IS off the Hizzle!!

Hendrix College

We left from Nashville this morning to head out to Conway, Arkansas. I've been here before!!! Back when "If I Run To You Now" was getting airplay, I did a little radio tour with a bunch of stops in Arkansas. I realized during the show tonight (and shared with the students) that Arkansas was on of the states that had the most stations playing my song. :) So yeah, I love Arkansas.

We got there and I was having trouble helping James look for the building we were supposed to find because I was so caught up in how beautiful their campus was. It was exactly the kind of campus I always pictured in my head of "college". It looked so inviting. It's funny though. I had always envisioned a big "Campus" and then I ended up going to a school in the middle of Boston that had no campus.... just random buildings on the street. :) But who am I kidding? I loved that, too!

This was another school where the students were there and ready to help from the moment we pulled in. They were all lifting and helping us get all of our gear out of the car. This is the social committee - everyone who helped bring us to Hendrix, put on the show, and took great care of us!


This is Lydia and John. They were our main contacts for the evening. They had one of the best intro's for us EVER. I'm not even sure what all they said, :) but they had everyone laughing before we went out on stage. What a great way to get a show started!


You would have thought this crowd was in a packed arena. They were so energetic and excited from the first note. I could see these girls in the front row singing along to every word of "Whatever It Takes". I LOVE that. :)

After we took our picture, they were telling me how they go to the "VFW" all the time and sing "Fancy" in Karaoke. The "V" as they referred to it :) is the only place in town to have a drink! How great is that? I would love to visit their VFW. The ones I have gone to are more of a "Taco Night" establishment. Not beer and karaoke! Don't get me wrong.... those are some of the best tacos I have ever had... but come on... they call it the "V".

And these girls all jumped up from their seats at the beginning of the show, came down front, and danced the WHOLE time. It was the best. That was my favorite (shhhh.... don't tell).
   

Happy Birthday Jake!!! Jake was at NACA and he was one of the guys responsible for bringing us to Hendrix! He said "I never thought I would ever hear 'Fancy' live.... EVER" So I am REALLY glad I did "Fancy" tonight. :) Apparently it isn't only MY favorite song! This crowd went NUTS for it. And ummm.... Miguel helps out with his freakishly face-melting solo at the end...


FIDDLE PLAYERS!!!! Both of these guys play the fiddle. This is Patrick on the left and Louis on the right. Louis actually went to Mark O'Connor's fiddle camp last summer. I have always wanted to do that. I'm jealous!!! And Patrick is in High school. I would have never known. I just thought he was in college. But he is visiting Hendrix to see if he wants to go to school there.
These guys also informed me that there is a guy in the top 12 of American Idol from Conway, Arkansas! I had no idea. I haven't seen ANY Idols this year... well other than a couple of auditions.... we're always driving when it is on. But I thought that was cool. :) They were really proud.


She was also just visiting from high school. And she came to MY show!! :)


I love what I do so much. And I keep being surprised and excited by each show. That is what is so great about live shows. Even on nights when we do the exact same set, it is NEVER the same. Different audiences bring different things out of us. And when an audience is as energetic as the one tonight - it just makes our job so easy. It definitely isn't about the size of a crowd - it's about the "might" if you will. :)

Topeka - here we come!!

Peace, Love, Fiddle, and goodnight from Arkansas!
~natalie