University of North Florida Homecoming Hoedown

Tonight was the University of North Florida's Homecoming Hoedown!!!!

We had so much fun playing for them - they had free food, a mechanical bull, and a gorgeous audience! The girls were all dressed up so cute! It was awesome.


The guys weren't bad either :)


Surprise! These guys were showing the love!


They demanded an encore, and then AFTER the encore they starting chanting "Nat-a-lie! Nat-a-lie" Fort Benning style. :) Just awesome. If you had told me that kind of thing would happen back when I was an unsure and self-conscious teenager... not sure I would have believed you.

From left to right: Lynn, Wendy, and Laura who took care of us ALL day long!!! They got us food and even had our dressing room stocked with Vanilla Coke!!! That has NEVER happened before! Thank you to everyone at Osprey Productions for all your hard work. The event today was so professional and well done.


And LIZ!!!! Elizabeth Etherton is one of my dearest friends in the world. We were best friends in high school, we were in each other's weddings, and we always pick up right where we left off. We can go months even over a year without talking... but it never seems like we have been apart. She and her friend came to the show, came out to dinner with the whole band, and then I got to go hang out at her place and catch up into the wee hours of the night.


Great night, great show, great friends. :)

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

Running Out of Eggs Is Awesome

You know when you run out of eggs and it's annoying cause you thought you had more?

That little event - running out of eggs - made me SO HAPPY TODAY!!!! Do you know how long it has been since we have run out of something because we ATE it all??? You know.... instead of throwing it out because we were only here long enough to eat a little bit and then it was out of date by the time we got back. Yeah. That feeling of not wasting our food was AWESOME.

I have spent the last few hours going through all my songwriting ideas I have jotted down, or memos I have recorded on my phone. I can't believe how many great ideas I have that are just sitting there!!! I really thought I would be able to write more on the road this year. But with everything going on, it just rarely happens. At least so far that has been the case. The addition of some of our new band members for next year may change all that! WOO HOO!!!

But I am pumped to get back into the swing of writing. My good friend Jenn Bostic and I are writing tomorrow. It is our first time writing together. She is an incredible singer and songwriter. When I was at Berklee - I was the "country" girl that sang all the country songs in the showcases. After I graduated - Jenn arrived and she was the token "country girl" :) So tomorrow... the "Berklee Country Girls" UNITE. Watch out.

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~nat

My Sticky Shoe

Anyone get the title? Think "Phoebe's sexy flem" on Friends :)

Yeah. I could hit lower notes than normal tonight. Didn't help much with the high ones...

When James tries to talk NOTHING comes out. :(

But we made it!!! One more and then we'll rest up for next weekend. I can't BELIEVE how great I felt on stage tonight. I was a wreck today... but the show must go on.


So, apparently it is "former bass player week" :)

2 nights ago Dennis Haskins (Aka Mr. Belding from Saved by The Bell) and one of my first bass players in Green Line South, Adam Countryman, started texting me at 3am. They met each other at a bar in L.A. and somehow my name came up :) CLASSIC. That was definitely some good "get well medicine"

And tonight.... Davide Pezzini My VERY FIRST BASS PLAYER... EVER from Berklee came out to the show tonight!!! We think we haven't seen each other in 6 years. How crazy is that? Wow. He's originally from Switzerland, but now lives in Chicago! I'm all about the international band!


And we had SOOO many wonderful people come out tonight. THAT is what got me through the show. Our Iowa family was here - James' Mom, Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, and lots of friends!!! WOOO HOO!!! I didn't get pics :( It was chaos! But we played Doobie Brothers for Aunt Deana!

Sue and her crew drove in:


Fred won the prize for furthest drive.... He drove all the way from Marquette, Mi where we originally met at Upfront and Company! So when he requested Purple Rain, we HAPPILY obliged! He had to jet out, so we didn't get a pic either, but it was SOOO good to see you Fred!

Tim got to fly up earlier in the week to spend time with his brother and brand new baby niece. John even snuck away from his baby girl to come out to the show tonight!


The wait staff had an awesome contest for who could look the most country. :) They were pretty awesome:



Jessie is with us again! I don't know what I would have done without her tonight!


And this place was packed. We had SO much fun with everybody there! I <3 Ballydoyle Pub!





Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

Last Day In the Studio!

Today was our last day in the studio for this record!!! Holy cow, y'all. Seriously? What a whirlwind. Ben opened up his calendar and suddenly realized that we only started this undertaking a mere week and a half (well, not even...) ago. WHAT!?!? It seems as though that is UNPOSSIBLE! (sorry kids. unpossible is not a word... yet ironically that seems to emphasize it's meaning... in my head...)

Miguel came in to record his awesome Chilean Rockstar parts today. Ella and I got some good "hang time" in while her Daddy was recording. We played outside the WHOLE time... with sticks... lots and lots of games with sticks... and Cinnamon... and earth worms... and a GIANT STICK that took BOTH of us to carry!

Yeah. Recording is fun. :)

Today is not only the last day of recording, but it is also the eve of the SUMMER TOUR!!! Again, WHAT?!?! How is that possible? I'm not sure, but I am so excited. You know what's funny? Going back out on the road actually feels like somewhat of a break! I never knew THAT would be the case. Due to our intense marathon week of recording, we have yet to design the slick and shiny version of the Summer Tour schedule, but it will be done for all to see VERY soon. So until then, just check the regular calendars here and on all my various websites!

Very appropriately, our summer tour starts off with a full weekend down in Panama City Beach, FL. at Spinnaker Beach Club. So here's to going back out on the road! (I'm holding up that imaginary Pina Colada... in my head...) And here's to big hair from the humidity... ala Monica from Friends... or the Frizz-ease commercials. :)

What in the world will Ben do without us tomorrow nagging him in the studio??

Peace. Love. Fiddle. Beaches.
~natalie

University of Findlay

I didn't turn the light out until 6am last night (or this morning? ummm... whatever....) I was falling asleep trying to proof read my blog... I felt like I was back in high school studying for some crazy test... :)

Needless to say, we slept in as long as we could. We were only 3.5 hrs away from Findlay, so we were able to get a late check out. We were all dragging a little bit getting ready this morning and no one bothered to open the curtains in our room... I remember us all laughing and talking on the elevator as we were heading down to check out. As we turned the corner into the lobby... BAM!! Blizzard. The room fell silent. Now, we were leaving with 2 extra hours... but with snow we were gonna need every bit of those 2 hours! It was a crazy drive. I've never seen this before: We would drive for a while and the snow would be thick enough it would make it hard to see.... then, all of a sudden, we'd drive out of it and it was pouring rain.... then we'd drive right back into snow. Did that quite a few times! SO strange.

Needless to say, we were VERY happy to get there. And the icing on the cake?? There were tons of students waiting on us when we arrived. I don't talk about this often, but this school sets a GREAT example. The students there were so helpful we barely had to unload. James and Joe would take stuff out of the trailer, lift it onto the platform, and then the students would take it inside faster than we could unpack it.

I can't tell you what a big difference that makes for us. We load and unload that trailer EVERY DAY. So to have any help is a big deal... And when you get a LOT of help, it just makes everything so much nicer.

We don't expect it, nor is it necessary, but it is VERY MUCH appreciated.

These students were really on their game. They did tons of promotion and had fliers up all over school for the show. They made sure our videos were played on the school's tv station and they even took the time to decorate our Green Room with "Welcome" and "Good Luck" messages. We even had a "Break a leg (not literally)" sign... I love it!!

Campus Programming Board

Hootie = "The Thinker" aka Dobie Gillis

Sharinda, the lady who brought us here, thought that James looks just like Ben Roethlisberger :) Ben grew up in Findlay and she said that James looks and acts so much like him!!! How funny is that? She said when he had his hat on especially - he was just like "Big Ben" :)

My husband: Quarterback by day.      Drummer by night.
       

We were playing in the Winebrenner Theological Seminary which was a really beautiful auditorium. We played 2, 1 hour sets, so it was another show where I really had time to have great dialogue with the audience. I really love that...

This guy. Wow. One of my favorite people ever and I just met him tonight. From the first note, he was SOOO into it. He was whoopin and hollerin and giving us so much love the WHOLE show. He had such kind words for us at the end of the night. Such a warm, crazy, fun person. I love all the people we get to meet doing this!

I think my favorite part was when we got to the chorus of "Purple Rain" and you just saw the light bulb come on. "PURPLE RAIN, BABY!!!!"
   

Students from 'round the world!! I was SO excited they came, and I admire anyone who is brave enough to go to a country where they don't speak the primary language fluently. I can't imagine - ESPECIALLY since I don't speak ANY other languages.
During intermission, I was told they had come in towards the end of the first set and started asking what kind of music it was... Someone told them that it was "country music". One of the kids said, "Oh. I like her music and her country." How awesome is that!!?? Natalie Stovall: bringing people together. ;)

Then came the part of the evening that I will affectionately refer to as: "Natalie is an idiot" time...

Let me disclaimer this first by saying: I was told these foreign exchange students didn't speak English fluently.

When they came up to talk to me after the show one of the guys asked "Picture?" and I said OF COURSE! And after we took the picture, I looked at the girl next to him and said fairly deliberately "Are you on facebook?" Hoping she would understand... The girl replied very casually "Oh yeah, I'm on facebook!" Making it quite apparent that she spoke English rather fluently...

Sooo yeah, I felt about 2 inches tall. I sure hope she didn't take offense, I felt SO stupid... I was told they would have trouble understanding me and I believed it... Burned... by life...

They were so much fun and were all rocking the "cell-phone lighters". That never gets old :)


These girls are both Equestrian Students!! How cool is it that you can go to college and study to train horses?? I think that is awesome. After the show they both ran back to their rooms to get money to buy cds! That's dedication. :)

Oh! And they knew every word to "Fancy", which makes them even cooler... :)


Hannah!!!
This sweet girl was sitting right up front. Her parents brought her out because she plays guitar AND piano. She was up WAY past her bedtime, but you would have never known it. She didn't miss a beat - she sang along, danced, and was right up in front with all the college students on "Sweet Child"! I love seeing kids with so much passion for music. Never give up on your dreams sweet girl!
Her Dad mentioned that she already writes her own songs. That's awesome... He said that, right now, her style is a bit like Phoebe from "Friends" :) I would love to hear her songs. You keep writing girl!


Kyle! LOVE that cowboy hat. I wanted to wear it :)


So thank you guys so much!!! We had yet another amazing show tonight. It's hard to believe... I feel like that's all I've been talking about lately, but the crazy thing is that it's been true. We've had such a great run of shows lately. It's been such a wonderful way to kickstart this tour and this year. I'm so happy to get to go home for a few days, but I don't want to stop cause I don't want to lose this great momentum we seem to have right now... Wow... I love it!

After all that, we ended up at Denny's for dinner around midnight, finally made it to the hotel, and now we are just praying some of this black ice will melt away so we can safely get back to Tennessee. We have a few days at home before we head out for another month. I can't WAIT to see Cinnamon!!! YAY!!! And now... take a wild guess... I'm going to bed y'all! Goodnight!

peace, love, fiddle, and breakfast for dinner,
~natalie

Hold me closer Tony Danza

Today James and I were meeting a friend for lunch in Green Hills. As
we were walking in our friend tapped me on the shoulder and said,
"Hey, isn't that Darryl Waltrip?" Sure enough there he was getting out
of his car... As we got closer our friend heard him saying something...

Was he on his cell phone?

Nope...

Was he talking to someone still in the car?

Nope...

He was definitely singing "Tiny Dancer" to himself...

That is awesome... Of course he would be. I wanted to jump up on the
hood of his car and join in for a big dramatic "Almost Famous"
moment... but he probably would have just called the cops.

Maybe next time...