Beeping Fiddles!

I broke ANOTHER string!!!! This is just getting ridiculous, y'all. We keep playing shows outside in the cold, and I am about to run out of fiddle strings! I am gonna have to overnight some strings to our next location, so that I have enough. Whoa.

We played the 90th Annual South Mississippi Fair tonight. It was really cold outside. When we left Nashville a couple of weeks ago, I didn't exactly pack for cold outdoor shows. We haven't ever really played many of those. But the last few weeks, it seems like that is ALL we've played!

Tonight I wore a scarf with a short sleeve shirt. Yeyeah! Don't be confused. It's the new hotness. :)

Man. Last night... James and I fell asleep sometime after 3am. I was excited because we were gonna get to sleep in since we didn't have to be anywhere until 12:30. I got TONS of work done last night. But then WAKE UP!!!!! 6:45 am (NOT my best time) the smoke alarm in our room starts going off like crazy. It would beep beep beep (BLARING... I mean, rattling my ear drums) and then it would hiccup a bit... then it would stop. We thought it was over. Fooled again. And again. In my hazy, angry, fog I remember James calling down to the front desk and saying, "Is there actually a fire, or are you just messing with us?" The guy on the other end of the phone said, "Excuse me, Sir?" And then BEEEEEEEEEEEP The front desk dude, who i think about fell down from having his ear drum berated, said, "OH MY GOODNESS. Sir, I'll be right up"

He ended up ripping it out of the ceiling because he couldn't get it turned off, and didn't know what else to do. It was a very loud, sleepy, disturbing 30 minutes of my morning. Luckily, I don't remember much that early in the day. :)

But then, Chris I guess accidentally texted me at 8:30... and my text message alarm beeped a bunch of times. THEN a crane started working right outside our window around 9. I kept waking up and thinking, "Goodness! That truck has been backing up FOREVER"

So all that to say... it was a long morning of beeping. But tonight is going to be a short night of sleeping, so I better hop to it. If that smoke alarm goes off now... well... I'm just going to assume that God doesn't want me to sleep tonight. :) (As I look up and see exposed wires just hanging out of the ceiling)

Peace. Love. Beeping Fiddles.

~natalie

Why Georgia, Why?

Sooo....

Someone backed into the Suburban today in the parking lot. :( BUT it's not bad at all. It's just a little dent in the back driver's side door. So it's not a big deal... just annoying. You know, a lot more annoying than when NO ONE backs into your car.

I ran out to the burb to get a scarf and as I was locking up, the security guard for the parking lot said, "Ma'am. Is this your vehicle?" He said the guy didn't even realize he had done it and just kept going... they had to chase him down the parking lot, and get his info.

Today was FREEZING. It was 50. Which, yeah... isn't so bad. But the wind was blowing like crazy and there was no sun. By the last set, it was in the 40's and I could see my breath. And guess who broke ANOTHER fiddle string tonight!?!?! Crazy, right??

I would leave my hoodie on and take it off RIGHT before the show each time. And I'd fill up on hot chocolate... but that didn't help my fingers or fiddles! But hey. At least I wasn't one of the waterskiers. They stopped by our show before they had to go get ready for their 9:00 show. And you could just see the dread in their faces. It was rough. I don't know how they do it! One of the hot tub vendors let them jump in the hot tubs right after their show to warm up a little bit. Ughhh. I can't IMAGINE how cold that water is!

We had 3 fantastic shows today. But for some reason, the computer isn't letting me upload photos. Maybe tomorrow, ya'll. Hope everyone out in cyberland is having a good night! Try not to get backed into in the parking lots!

I Broke A String

I broke a string tonight in the last show!!! WOOO HOO!

I'm normally not that cool. Miguel breaks strings all the time. But I hardly ever do. And the funny thing is, Amanda - who has come to see us at Whiskey River a bunch up in Macon, came to the first show on Wed night. She asked me if she could have the next string I broke on stage. I told her I hardly ever break one. It's only happened a few times in my whole life. And then TONIGHT. She came back to tonight's show. Lo and behold, guess who broke a string!?!?! SO yeah, she got to keep it!


And these wonderful people, I met on the ferry coming off of Put-In-Bay. I blogged about their awesome doggies - they have a standard, toy, and miniature poodle. I told them at the time that we would be at the fair, and they came!!! It was so cool to see them. It didn't register who they were at first. I felt so bad, becaue I had other people talking to me, and I was a little scattered, but as soon as I realized who they were, I got SO excited!


Alright folks. I think I am gonna go have a drink with Barney Fife. Cause how many times in your life do you get to say you've done that??

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

Filling Out The Fancy

I feel like I am in a movie walking down the hallways of this hotel. :)

There are so many performers coming and going... in and out of the rooms... you can hear The Drifters laughing and talking in their rooms. It's like a scene out of "Ray". :)

The guys are all hanging out with some of the other performers at the bar at the Holiday Inn. It's funny to have to go from one hotel to another to grab a drink! But I didn't want to get in the smoke... so I drove the boys and will just be their DD tonight.

We got to play today!!! We played the first 2 shows, but thunderstorms rolled in right before our last set. So we just had to pack up and go home. But during the first show... Miguel broke a string during "Fancy." No big deal. Happens all the time. So he picks up his other guitar and keeps playing. THEN he breaks a string on his OTHER guitar almost immediately. That has NEVER happened to him before! :) So he quickly ran behind his guitar amp and put another string on. I didn't know what was going on, and I didn't want to draw any more attention by looking... So Chris, James, and I played most of the song by ourselves. It turned out really great! Chris did an awesome job filling it out as much as possible on bass.

But Miguel got his string back on JUST in time for his solo :) And as always, rocked it out!

Well, peoples on the interwebz, I am ready for sleeping. Or maybe napping until I pick up the boys... and then sleeping. I like quiet time. I haven't been alone in a LONG time.

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

You Need To Calm Down, Boy

Tonight...

I broke my E string while playing "Standing My Ground".

I broke the tip off my really nice (aka expensive) violin bow from using it like a drum stick on James' cymbol.

And something I have NEVER done before....
I called a guy out OVER THE MIC!

It takes a lot to make me angry... but in between every song this one guy would scream a the top of his lungs in a very angry and rude voice "PLAY MERLE HAGGARD GOD D!%^*#"

Don't be that guy. That guy is NOT cool.

After ignoring him for a long time... I couldn't take it anymore. I'm not a fan of "GD" anyway.... but especially when someone is screaming it AT me. He genuinely seemed angry that I wasn't playing the things he was screaming at me. I have never called someone out on stage before. But I said " You need to calm down, boy. I heard you the first 16 times you yelled that at me. But right now, I'm gonna play a song that I want to play."

Now let me clarify by saying that I love me some Merle. But I'm not the right girl to do Merle Haggard justice. I'm not sure what part of my show he was actually watching...

My compromise was to have Tim sing Hank Jr.

But that didn't satisfy him. He moved on to screaming "PLAY CCR."

I was a bit on edge because a lot of things were going wrong tonight and my voice was shot. Yet I was still trying to give everything I had to the show.

I felt bad... that is.. until on the set break he very condescendingly started saying things like, "Why don't you play Chris Knight? Or (insert cool indy Texas artist here)" "Do you even know who they are?" (Mind you.... he's having to scream this over blaring hip hop beats while people are grinding next to us on the dance floor) But it's funny, he wouldn't give me a chance to answer. So I gave up on trying to actually have a conversation and just said "Well, because I don't." And had to walk away.

I don't like feeling mean.


The show was still great though.
I wouldn't let the one stupid boy ruin it for the hundreds of really cool people that were there!!!







Anothony Orio and Chris Griffiths and Elliot came out tonight!!! Which was way cool cause they played for 9 hours today at Tootsie's!




Peace. Love. Fiddle. and Don't Be That Guy.
~natalie