Hutto's a Quarterback?

Tom Brady as....

...Charlie Hutto??

I love it.

Peace. Love. Fiddle. and Back On The Road Tomorrow!

~natalie

USAO - Chickasha, OK

We're back!!! We are in Chickasha Oklahoma tonight. USAO is the first college to bring us back for a second show! We played at Droverstock last year - which was a blast. So we were really looking forward to coming back tonight! The hotel they put us up in - it's a Best Western but think Opryland Hotel meets a Best Western. :) We were so excited to come back to our "jungle Best Western" There are so many plants in the courtyard in the middle of the hotel. There's a great indoor pool and a ping pong table! (James LOVES the ping pong!) I want to go swimming but I don't think I'll have time :( NOT complaining though!!!
We actually spent 3 days here the last time we came into town because a show had canceled on us - so we just hung out, played ping pong and walked to Walmart next door a bunch!

Lori Underwood is the lady who brought us back to play tonight! She is one of the sweetest and most wonderful people to work with. It was so good to see her again! Oh, and she got us Pizza Hut Pasta for dinner.... those commercials aren't lying! It is REALLY good. Thank you for everything Lori!!!


We actually had quite a few people who came out to the show that were at Droverstock last year. Droverstock is this giant academic testing day for all the high schools in area. In addition to the testing - there is a HUGE festival that goes on - including live bands all day (you know - why we were there). And they have this HUGE sidewalk chalk art contest - I have NEVER seen such unbelievable sidewalk art!!! They were so creative - it was like going to one of those ridiculous sand castle competitions where people build dragons in amazing detail - yeah. The creativity in these drawings was inspiring! And then all the clubs and organizations at USAO have booths and sell all kinds of fun things. It's really awesome!

She totally brought her shirt from Droverstock for me to sign because she forgot it last year!!! How cute is that?!


And some more repeat customers from Droverstock :)




Now, Terry is a repeat customer, but not because he was a high school student last year. :) He actually came to see us in 2007 at the Jack Daniel's Saloon. He signed up on the email list and has kept up with us ever since. He came out tonight and even brought a friend! How awesome is that!? That right there is what touring is all about y'all!


We were excited because we almost matched perfectly - looks like we planned it... cause, ya know... I tell everyone to wear fuchsia when I am planning on wearing it :)


Amelia!!! One of our youngest audience members. :) This was her first concert! She even managed to get a little nap in during a couple of the slower songs, but woke right back up for the energetic ones. She didn't make a peep, and was SO attentive the entire show!


After we got back to hotel - I finally ate my pasta.... WOW. SOOO good. And I definitely had another package of Keebler Fudge Shop Cookies from last night (Thanks Robin!). And James bought a deck of cards - the guys have been playing cards while I was uploading photos to facebook. And y'all - they are being so funny right now. I think they each picked a laugh or something - Miguel will laugh really funny and choppy, Hootie will laugh all high pitched and sqeaky, and then James laughs all low and Barry White-like. And then all of that makes us ALL laugh for REAL. They are so funny. I love my band.

And can we just talk about how it is so warm here that we had to turn on the AC in the Suburban today? Ummm.... a little different from last week's shoveling of the snow... It was 70 here today. Wow.
Tomorrow, back to the cold! We drive to Wisconsin :) Kenosha, here we come!

peace, love, fiddle, and laughter

~nat

Winter/Spring 09 Tour Passes

Tonight MORE than made up for any crazy "technical difficulties" and headlocks with people screaming in my ear that went on last night!!! The place was packed out. Lots of friends and family came to the show, as well as LOTS of newbies :) I love playing at the Jack. It's like going out of town without actually going out of town. :) The majority of people are usually from the business conferences that take place at the Opryland Hotel. So it is actually pretty rare that people are in the Jack who actually live in Nashville.

I can't tell you how many times we have showed up in some random city and people are at the show because they saw us at the Jack!!! It is so cool. And tonight, there was a couple from Maine that plans on being at our show at Bates college in Lewiston on Thursday! It is so funny to think that I met someone in Nashville on Saturday who may be at our show in Maine on Thursday!

So I have to show something off a little bit :) I am really proud of it! (James has been working hard on a lot of fun projects.) And we now all have official Winter/Spring Tour Passes. : ) I know you can just look at the schedule on one of the many websites (NatalieStovall.com, myspace, facebook, reverbnation.... all the goodies) But this one is just so fun and colorful! Check it out and to see us if we are playing at a town near you!

If you click on the actual poster - it will come up much bigger in another window.... you know... so you can read it.



Hope to see you out on the road!

~peace, love, and finally got the fiddle working again. :)~

Hoods and Back Doors Flying Everywhere!

It was a good day today :)

I finally fell asleep somewhere around 7am. Didn't sleep very hard because I was so worried about waking up on time. :) Got up at 9:30 and headed to my writing session. On the way there.... my trunk flew open on my jeep... It's a Cherokee so the "trunk" is really just a back door. I was driving down the road and all of a sudden I could hear the cars and semi's WAY too loudly :) It's happened before... and gear has fallen out in the middle of the road... but thankfully, there was nothing in it today. I safely was able to pull over and get it latched quickly. Thank goodness I had already gotten off the interstate!

What happened was:
When we got in early this morning - I tried to open the back door to load the sound system into it. But the door was frozen shut. We realized we were probably taking the sound system on the next trip so we decided to leave it in the trailer. When I tried to open the door, it must have come unlatched... just enough. Even though I body slammed it (I was suspicious of it opening since it's happened before), and LOCKED it.... that all proved futile this morning while I was driving. Apparently my body slam isn't quite as ferocious as one might think. Once the door unthawed - it was open for the whole world to see!

That's much better than the night the hood flew up and covered my entire windshield on the interstate. I had given James' car a jump and I guess I didn't slam the hood down all the way. Once I picked up speed and the wind caught underneath it.... the hood flew up, rendering me completely blind to the road. I couldn't even see to get over. I was in the right lane though, and James helped talk me through getting to the shoulder. It all happened so fast. It was one of the scariest moments of my life. I was on the way to a show that night, too. I was so shaken when I got there. Man, that was JUST the beginning of that night. But that's a whole other blog :)

So today was my first writing session with a lady named Angela Lauer. I am a big fan of her writing and we had such a great first day together! We have a lot more sessions on the books, so I'll have a lot of music to share with you soon :)

I came home and did an interview over the phone for our show at Bates College for next week. I am excited to go play in Lewiston, Maine! My very first guitar player at Berklee - Mr. Nate Telow is from Lewiston. He was in Green Line South and lived at my house with the band the first summer we played around Nashville. He has gone on the be the Massachusetts State Body Building champion!!! He used to train me back in my "buff days"... :) So I have been to Lewiston before, but never played at Bates!

And then I did a very monumental thing. I went to the grocery store!!!!! WOOO HOO!!! We are here for a few days, so I actually got to go get food to cook at home. It's such a rare occurrence. It makes me feel all normal and stuff. :) But alas.... it's 3:30 in the morning... and I am just now thinking about bed. So I guess I am back to being all weird and musiciany. But who am I kidding? I like it that way. :)

The Jack is always so much fun!

An amazing group of people were sitting at the table closest to the stage - they were really impressing me on the "Funky Music Dance" - Jim, as I came to find out later, just about had the best "wiggle" of anyone I have ever seen. I think it must be because he is from Scotland :) The whole table was from Scotland and they cheered every time I said Y'all! :) Which only made me the happiest southern girl in the room! It was Dave and Sandra's 25 wedding anniversary - so we made them dance to a little Marvin Gaye :) It was awesome.



And THEN!!!!!! The tallest guy I have ever seen walked up to buy a cd. I had played Rocky top for him earlier cause I noticed his UT hat.... WOW. And look at how cute his girlfriend is!!! She is so tiny and he is.... 6'10" Yeah. I was really excited to stand next to him. Thanks for letting me take this pic, Justin! I wonder what the world looks like from up there :)