Barney Fife and Gomer Pyle Danced With Me On Stage Tonight!

It's closing time at the fair :( We had so much fun this week. It was FINALLY a beautiful day out at the Georgia National Fairgrounds. It was still chilly, but it was a million times better today because the sun was out! :)

We made so many great new friends this week. Our friend and dressing room mate, Carrie McQueen, is a fabulous stilt walker and juggler. And her precious puppy, Gypsy (because she was on the road with Carrie 2 weeks after she got her!) was such a sweet puppy. She kept us entertained! And she LOVED James. When he took a little break on the floor... she decided to do the same :)


And LEON!!! Leon Jacobs, the NICEST man in show business. He and I would alternate playing shows on the Georgia National Stage. He plays keys and is just fantastic! And THEN he would run sound during our shows. Everyone constantly had such great things to say about our sound. As one guy said... "Leon goes from song to song. Most sound guys go from sandwich to sandwich" :) I love that! But he was VERY attentive and did an amazing job.
We LOVE Leon. And Chris loves him a LOT. As you can see.


Chris actually got up and did the Tina Turner dance during Leon's last set :) We were all doing just about anything to keep warm. But I have a sneaking suspicion that Chris would have done it anyway ;)-

In the last show of the night, Leon got up to play a song with us, Barney Fife AND Gomer Pyle got up on stage and sang and danced with us!!! I will NEVER forget that!

We had some awesome people out at the show, too! These kids gave me the bear I'm holding!!! They won it and then gave it to me :) So he sat on my amp for all of my shows.


Lucy came to the show yesterday, and then came back again today! She used to play the violin. She was in Germany and had a violin teacher from Holland :) She told me to ask Barney if St. Pete gave him his bullet back when he got to the Pearly Gates. :)


And these guys were AWESOME! They came to a couple shows tonight and wanted their hoodies signed :)



Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

Texas A&M Commerce and The Red Chair in the Street

We played an afternoon show at "The Club" on Texas A&M Commerce's campus today. It is a BRAND new facility for students and is a really cool place. They have a stage built in complete with lights and sound... cafes and little stations for food. And today there was a huge high school bilingual competition going on. So there were hundreds of kids just hanging out! It was really fun. They had ALL kinds of competitions... music... plays.... poetry.... pretty cool stuff!
The show was great, and Rick, our wonderful contact who took GREAT care of us, introduced me to some new green tea with Goji berry that I LOVED! MMmmmm.

Kathrin is an exchange student from Germany and was one of the judges for the (take a guess!) German competitions.


Fellow musicians :) They were competing in the music categories... in spanish! And they totally rushed the stage and did the "We're not worthy" bows during "Devil". I <3 them.


My first wallet signing. :) It was a fancy one too! I may need to reevaluate my big ole ugly wallet... hers was adorable. And now it says "Peace, Love, Fiddle" YAY!


Another one of the awesome guys taking care of us all day. He was running sound, loading and unloading equipment, making sure we had everything we needed. He was all-around awesome!


Some actual college students!!! :) There were a lot of students at the show, too. But the high schoolers made up most of the crowd.


And AFTER the show.... we headed on to Frozen Fire Films in Dallas to do a photo shoot. It was SO much fun!!! We did this one shot in this awesome red chair...
Travis, the photographer, said "What if we did some shots in the red chair in the middle of the street with the skyline in the background?" We were all game... but it was a TEAM effort! There was traffic... it was a little crazy. We were having to do it when the traffic was stopped at a light. Stacy was on the corner making sure nothing unexpected was coming, Randy had the reflector, Travis had the camera, Miguel had the chair, and James was helping me with the fiddle and the video camera!!!
We'd run out - Miguel would put the chair in the street, we'd get a few shots and then have to strike it all to let the cars pass.... and then we'd do it all over again until we got everything we needed. It was like an action movie :) Well... not really.... only in my head.... but it was really funny.... AND exciting. I loved it.

I can't wait to see all the pics - especially the ones in the street! We bought a hard drive tonight at Walmart to download them all tomorrow. The files are huge so it will take a TON of space. These guys do such great work though. It will be REALLY nice to have some new pics!

I have to get up on 3 hours for TWO shows! :) Life on the road!

Peace, Love, Fiddle, and GOODNIGHT!
~natalie