Penn State Altoona

West Virginia sure is beautiful! The interstates twist and turn so much more than normal! :) We made it to Penn State Altoona right on time. They had a great room set up with a stage and lights. And we got all ready to go.
But....
There were a few things missing...
Miguel left his boots at home.... I had never seen him play in tennis shoes before! It was funny looking. :) And it turned out that there wasn't any monitors. But it wasn't a big deal at all. We just did without!
But Hootie had something new. A Bass! He played his first show with it tonight. It sounded awesome, and it's a 5-string, so he had a whole extra string to play than normal! :)

Apparently, at Penn State Altoona it takes 3 good-looking guys and one British accent to put on a show!


These girls were all musicians, too. They were so sweet!


Totally his first country concert! He said "country's not really his thing" but, hey! He stayed the WHOLE show :) Nice.


And Jenny bought a cd for all of her friends! What a sweetheart!


So now we are driving to Staten Island. We play an afternoon show there, so we are already heading that direction. We are all starving right now, but there wasn't anything open in Altoona.... so we got on the road. Just tried to stop at a Perkins but it was CLOSED! We've found a Denny's in 45 miles though. SCORE. :)

Peace, Love, Fiddle,
~natalie

"I Made It All The Way To West Virginia"

This afternoon I was running on Belmont Blvd in Nashville, TN. Tonight I just checked into a hotel in West Virginia. :) I love that this feels NORMAL.

I spent the first 5 hours of the drive entering emails from the email list. It was almost an entire month's worth of emails! I tried to write a new email for everyone, but quite a few roadblocks appeared. But it's coming soon :)

As we were packing up to leave, I wanted to restock the cds. And to my surprise I emptied the LAST box of cds for this trip! That means it is time to reorder cds AGAIN! And the best part is, I will be reordering the first one at the same time I will be recording the new one :) YAY!!! Pretty excited about that. This means I have sold nearly 3,000 hard copies of cds with well.... I'm not sure HOW many have been sold on itunes, but it's quite a bit as well. :)

Tomorrow we are playing a show at Penn State in Altoona, PA. Every time I read "Altoona" I hear it in Arnold Schwazenegger's voice. You know... like, "It's not a Tooomar" :)

Ok. yeah. I should probably try to sleep or something. It IS 4:30 and the birds are already chirping...

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

Nacogdoches, TX Knows How to PARTY!!

Today was a blast. We played at Stephen F. Austin University at their Springfest. And MAN! They know how to put on an event! It was a huge outdoors festival - they had Mud Volleyball, inflatable games, BBQ, 4 different bands TONS of people - students, kids, adults, and SOOO many sweet doggies were out, too. :) It was BYOB and seriously just a freakin blast!

The bands were:
Josh Abbott Band
Rich O'Toole Band
Me :)
Casey Donahew Band

They are all really successful Texas bands. It is so awesome how Texas has a whole other level of appreciation for independent country music. You can sell out arenas and ONLY be known in Texas as an artist and only be played on Texas radio. Crazy, right? These kids knew every word to all of their songs - it was so great. And they welcomed us with open arms! It was REALLY fun to be put in the middle of all those great bands.

I had more fun playing today than I have in a while - which is saying a LOT because we have had a lot of great shows lately. But you know, it's all about the crowd. If they are giving me love, then we are all giving it right back. And then they give more, and then we give more, and it keeps escalating. The first few songs started out with only a few people up front... but the more we played, the more they came running!!!

When we were hanging out listening to Rich O'Toole - I was watching the crowd a bit. This one girl set her purse down on the ground and started pulling stuff out of it. I wasn't thinking about it at first - but normally, you'd see a girl pulling out a wallet or sunglasses or cell phone, right? Well, not this girl! She pulled out a beer, and put it in a koozie... and another beer, umm and another... and another... girlfriend pulled out 6 beers and koozies. It's all she had in there! And THAT my friends, set the tone for the day :)

You know... just hanging out with my friend the crawfish


This guy was getting the entire crowd dancing!!! And I even got to join in on Miguel's solo during "Fancy"!


Can you tell who played mud volleyball in this pic? Ya'll, the mud was up to their KNEES. It was ridiculous. There were so many people running around all day long that were completely COVERED in mud :)


My awesome Merch girl!!!


Signing the jeans. Oh yeah.


Casey Donahew was so great. They put on one hell of a show. :)


These students were incredible today. And this isn't even 1/4 of the kids that were helping out. They were so organized and there were a LOT of moving pieces to this event. I couldn't count how many games and booths there were. But they had everything under control and made us very comfortable all day.


I love Nacodoches - plus it's fun to say :)

Next stop.... Penn State in Altoona PA

Peace, Love, Fiddle,
~natalie