7 shows in 5 days

Today?

We have been driving to Texas! We found a Jimmy Johns in Jackson, Tn which made us all very happy. That makes 3 days in a row for me + Jimmy Johns. Yesterday, I had Jimmy Johns DELIVERED! That's the best :) The +avocado is KEY to any sandwich at JJ's.

This week we have 7 shows in 5 days. Whoa. That's craziness. But the GOOD kind of craziness. I am excited. We have this week jam-packed. Tomorrow we have an afternoon show at Texas A&M in Commerce, TX. And then afterwards we are heading over to Frozen Fire Films in Dallas to do a photo shoot!!! FINALLY! I am getting new photos done :) Plus on Friday, we open for the LOS LONELY BOYS. YAY! That is one of our two-fer days :) We play two shows on Wed & Fri.

Whoa. Hootie just laid down on the floor... and I was REALLY confused. Turns out, he's doing stretches for his back. But I thought he was just opting NOT to sleep in the bed! The other day when we arrived in Providence at 7am, we had 1 room with 1 King size bed.... We had to leave at 9 so we weren't gonna get to sleep for all that long.... but we all wanted to nap a bit. Hootie and Miguel immediately took the floor :( Made me feel bad. And James just left! The man who had been driving the ENTIRE night.... just disappeared... we all thought he would come back and get in bed, so the guys just stayed on the floor. But nope. James went and got caffeinated and walked around downtown Providence. He figured sleeping for an hour and a half was much worse than not sleeping at all. I completely understand, but.... I just wanted to sleep. So I ended up sleeping in that big ole bed by myself. I would have slept just as well on the floor though, too. We were all pretty out of it!

Thankfully, by the time we got back from our show, we were all able to check into our separate rooms. And whew. That was one of the best night's of sleep I had in a looong while.

I saw this: in the bin at the gas station today!!!
(For anyone who may not know... "If I Run To You Now" is played in this movie.)

It made m so happy! I think it is the first time I have seen it without looking for it!


We've been watching the Sopranos in the Suburban... and we only have 1 1/2 episodes left in the whole series. I can't wait to see what happens!!! I've heard mixed reviews about the ending.... either you HATE it or you LOVE it... apparently there's very few "in betweens". I'm sure I'll have more to say on that later. But I just love how well written that show is. I NEVER thought I would like it. I figured it was all about killing and beatin people up. But there's SO much character development that I can tolerate the violence. I mean, it IS the mafia... so there violence has to be there... but it's not ABOUT the violence. I have to look away.... A LOT... but the rest of it... well, it's so good.

See you tomorrow from Texas!

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!!

Rhode Island College

First outdoor concert of the year was today! You know Spring is trying to come out when the outdoor shows start getting booked. We haven't played outdoors since Ribfest in St. Petersburg this last November.

We played at Rhode Island College on their Quad for a BEAUTIFUL afternoon show.

On my way to the stage... THIS is what I saw:

"Fiddler" with an arrow pointing to the stage. CLASSIC!

Plus they had one of the LARGEST posters I have ever seen of myself up on the wall! And they had hundreds of flyers they had been handing out to the students. It takes a LOT of people to put on a great show. SO MUCH goes into planning, preparing, promoting... and attention to detail is KEY. This group knew what they were doing! Oh... and having a raffle in the middle of the show doesn't hurt either :) Someone won a $250 gift certificate to a music store!!! SO COOL!
(I loved that they handed out free hats and bandanas to everyone, too!)


We played a 2 hour set and we were only the start to the day. They had a HUGE carnival tonight, too. It looked like a LOT of fun.

Nate was our main contact. He was wonderful to work with. He called me this morning because they couldn't find part of the stage. We have requirements in our rider that he was trying to fulfill. He left me a message saying he would "go in EVERY building on campus if he had to in order to find the rest of the stage... if what they had wouldn't work" :) WHAT A SWEETHEART! What they had was fine, but they ended up finding the missing pieces anyway. Plus, Nate is going to TSU for a semester in the fall!!! He just wants to be close to country music which I think is just the coolest thing ever. Who knew that you could trade semesters with Rhode Island College and Tennessee State University!?!?


I ended up selling my very last RED Peace, Love, Fiddle, T-shirt from the first design! :) I can't tell you how accomplished that made me feel :)


George pretty much stole the show... not gonna lie.


These girls were adorable. They were dancing and singing with me the whole show.


Kristen and Sadie made it! They came all the way from Boston :)


Kristen got some great pics that she has already uploaded onto facebook :)



And my good friend Sarah got to come today, too. We ended up getting to spend a bit of time together this afternoon and again this evening. I normally am not in a city long enough to do things like that. I was so thankful to get to spend time with her!!!


And I have gotta say - James is SUCH A CHAMPION!!! He drove the ENTIRE night last night. It is currently 1am and he is JUST NOW going to bed. I at least slept a few hours in the car while he was driving. But him? Not a wink. And we ran errands this afternoon... so the time we had planned to nap (before Lost came on!) ended up getting filled VERY quickly.

But we are staying at the Biltmore in downtown Providence. It is a beautiful hotel. And it is so nice to get to stay in a really nice hotel for more than 8 hours. :) Nice hotels are by no means a necessity. But we sure do live it up when we have one!

Tomorrow? We drive to Norfolk Virginia. But we wait until check out to leave. Oh yeah.

Drumroll please. I'm going to bed!

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

Johnson and Wales University, Providence, Rhode Island

Tonight we played at Johnson and Wales University in Providence Rhode Island.

It is VERY good to be back from Spring Break!!!! :) I think we ALL really enjoyed getting to take a week to spend time with family and I know it was great for me to get to write a bunch. But there's nothing like playing live! It's why we do what we do :)

The room was so cool tonight. We used our own sound system, but I did NOT have to use any reverb :) The room naturally had plenty of reverb. And all the students with UIB tonight helped us out so much!!! They were great about helping us load and unload gear. Thank you so much!


Tonight I had my first iphone signing :) I felt WAAAAY cool about that.


Signing the "guns"


Ya'll know I am partial to any Boston girl!


One of my best friends from Opryland days came to the show tonight!!! This is Sarah Mattingley, and we haven't seen each other since we were 14! Her dad lives in Nashville and he had a booth at the Opryland themepark - he made all these cool leather bracelets and belts and things. She used to come hang out with us at the Kid's Club Show. I told her I felt like I was 12 again looking out in the audience and seeing her there!



The show was great, the audience was great, the school was amazing. Good first day back on the job! Thanks Johnson and Wales!!! See you soon!

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

Big Az Driving

The desk clerk at the hotel just laughed at me when he asked how many people in our one room and I said "4". He said, "2 beds, right?" "Yes" "4 people? Hahahahaa"

ummm.... why is that funny?

We're back at it! Driving.... that is :) We have driven ALL day long... And we STILL have 7 1/2 hrs of driving to get there. Providence is a LONG way away from Nashville, y'all!

But I LOVE Providence. I used to always fly out of there when going home from Boston - The Providence airport had the cheapest flights. It's a small airport, though, so it closes down at night. I'd take the latest bus out of Boston and then just sleep in the airport until they opened back up for the early morningers :) There were always lots of us that had to do that :) Especially since the buses don't run all night.

It's a beautiful city - it always impressed me at how clean and new it looks.

Not a very eventful day today. We left Nashville, and I caught up on a LOT of work in the Suburban. But it felt like one of those days where - the more you get done, the more you discover what needs to get done.... like it never ends... :) But that's good! I'll never be bored! :)

This cracked me up at the gas station:


I don't know who can eat this stuff while they are driving!!! But apparently a lot of people do. They also had a Big Az Rack o Ribs and Big Az burger. :) I told Miguel he had to eat it all. But he also laughed at me.

Peace. Love. Fiddle. Laughter. (even if it is AT me.)
~nat