Shut It Down

We just had a GREAT show at Bowling Green State University, despite a meltdown of gear before soundcheck....

We've all battled so many gear-related issues lately! I mean, you know that upkeep is a part of being on the road... but this seems a little excessive! One of the problems tonight was actually pretty funny. I turned my amp on and a radio station was coming through it CLEAR as day. I tried moving it around, but that didn't help one bit. When the announcer came on and said something that I won't repeat... Time to SHUT IT DOWN.

So I ran my fiddle through a D.I.

Panther's Amp starting popping and cracking so badly, that HE had to SHUT IT DOWN.

So he ran though DAVID's D.I. and David had to play electric the whole set. And he had to use my D.I. for his acoustic during his opening set. Whew.

Anyway... we got around all the electrical problems in time to have an excellent show.

Tonight was an especially emotional night during "Angel". Miguel's Abuela (grandmother) passed away yesterday in Chile. He's doing well and our prayers are with his family. She was in the hospital for the last week and a half, and the doctors were amazed at her strength. I know she was looking down tonight and is SO proud of him. I had more chills than normal. I don't think that was a coincidence.

The UAO was SO great to us tonight. Our green room was filled with BGSU t-shirts, a sweatshirt, sweatpants, and other goodies. I am wearing my tee and sweatshirt already! :) And they got us dinner from this amazing local place. We were all drooling over how great our dinners were.

Thank you UAO Music Board!


















I LOVE my new BGSU Sweatshirt and tee!!! They are awesome.


I was really impressed by this mixer!!! Aunt Carol needs it for making mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving. She makes such a huge batch every year and this would really contribute to the cause! :)


Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

NCTC Rocks My Socks

Our 3rd show at North Central Texas College and it gets better every time!!! :)

We played at the Gainesville campus tonight and it was a packed show...

Jaci Butler and one of "Those Guys" showed up!

We got a standing ovation...

These sweet 2 little girls were dancing and twirling the whole time :)

The kids rushed the stage for "Devil Went Down To Georgia"

We signed guitars... lots of guitars! :)

People showed up sporting their Team Stovall and Peace Love Fiddle Tee's from previous shows!

A poster advertising the show had "OMG" written in gold puff paint... don't those 2 just go hand in hand??



And now we are driving overnight again to Houston. I just switched off and let James take over the wheel. I have some GREAT pics from tonight, but they aren't cooperating with "Van internet" Puff Paint seems to be the only winner... :) So I'll have to load the rest later.

But I want to wish Autumn a VERY Happy Birthday!!!! Thanks for coming to the show tonight.

The Night Hawk Made It's Live Debut

I AM OPENING FOR GRETCHEN WILSON ON FEB 12!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We found out today :) Can you tell that I am excited?? We're playing at the Country Club (not the golfin' kind... the line dancin kind...) in Augusta, Georgia.

WOO HOOOOOO!!!

Here's the link for the info if you want to come!
http://www.augustacountry.com/events.cfm

In other news :) The guitar I won when I was 12 years old, made it's debut on stage tonight! I won a Gibson Night Hawk (they didn't make them for real long... but they are great guitars) in a contest sponsored by Vietti Chili and Oscar Meyer. Irlene Mandrell hosted it, and I sang and played fiddle. It was aired on tv and people voted by writing their favorite entertainer on the back of a Vietti Chili or Oscar Meyer label and mailing it in. There was no limit to how many times you voted...

We ate a LOT of Vietti Chili that year. :) I think we were eating cans for over a year after that contest.

What is it with me and random food sponsored contests?

Anyway... I won a Gibson Night Hawk, and a dinner cruise on the General Jackson with Irlene Mandrell :)

I played the Night Hawk a bit... but I never took to guitar very much. I'm a fiddle girl. Can't fight it. My brother played it a little bit. And Ben has used it on records in the studio for the last few years. But David is gonna play it on the road with us. And tonight, it made it's love debut!!! 15 years later!!! Isn't it funny how things like that happen?

Look how pretty she is!

And David looks pretty snazzy, too. That's Zach, our new bass player, on the right.

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

Cheap Trick

We went to see Cheap Trick at the Ryman Auditorium tonight!!! Paul (my manager) bought tix for James, Ben, and me as an early Christmas present. And Cheap Trick is one of his favorite bands, so he wanted us to experience the almighty Cheap Trick for ourselves :)

It was SOOOO MUCH FUN!!!! They are incredible live. And dude. Robin Zander?!?!? Good Lord. If I have half of his voice when I am over 50, I will be good to go!!! The bass player was playing a 12 string bass. Ummm... NEVER seen that before. But it was really cool.

These guys KNOW how to put on a show. They are rockers in the true sense - as in, you don't feel like they are trying to rock. They just do. And the audience was pretty impressive. It was packed with session players, artists in town and even LARRY DAVID! Hilarious! No idea what he is doing in Nashville, but I saw him... didn't think it was actually him... because, well, why would he be in Nashville??

Man, I really loved that 12 string bass. It was such a cool sound. And he had the most gorgeous finish on it - very sparkly - and has given me inspiration for my next fiddle finish. :)

Yeah. So tonight rocked. It was a great way to kick off our marathon of being at home! Grandpa walked 4 times today, and his chest tubes came out. So YAY for that!!! Progress there :)

And welcome to the new blog followers! I see there are a few newbies to the list :) I'll try not to let you down. I may not be on the road the next few weeks, but I have no doubts there will be plenty of adventures to share :)

Night all.

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

I Got To Go Home Today! For 30 Minutes!!!

I AM SO TIRED OF BEING IN THE CAR.

Yesterday morning we were in Laurel, Mississippi. We left that morning and drove 6 hours to our gig in Louisiana. We played our gig, got in the car and drove 5 more hours... Spent the night somewhere else in Mississippi... left this morning and have been driving ever since. It is 2:30am and we still have 3 hours left. Ughh.

We stopped in Nashville for less than 30 minutes tonight. I stopped by my apartment and grabbed a sweater. Miguel and James had to swing by Guitar Center for a couple of things to make it through the rest of this week. So Jenn and Ella met Miguel at Guitar Center to give him some extra clothes, too. We all were under prepared for the cold on this trip!!

And then we struck out about 10 times in a row on trying to eat somewhere. We were trying to stop quickly so we plugged in a Dunkin Donuts into the GPS. But it turned out to be a gas station that happened to have a DD coffee dispenser. So then we tried the Arby's down the road. Closed. Called Jimmy John's we ALWAYS go to in Louisville. Closed. Got off at the next exit with a Subway/Gas station... CLOSED. Got off at the next exit because there was a Dunkin Donuts sign on the board. Never found it. Pulled into the Wendy's. Closed. 4 more exits later we found a Subway open. Good Lord. It's frustrating because with all that time driving in circles we could have just eaten with Jenn and Ella in Nashville instead of trying to grab something quickly.

So it's been a long couple of days of traveling. Every time we pass a tour bus I just sigh. And dream. :) Really... it's not even the bus that would make me all giddy. Just having a driver would change mine and James' lives! But this is what we have to do for now.

"Whatever It Takes" right?

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

Hutto's a Quarterback?

Tom Brady as....

...Charlie Hutto??

I love it.

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

~natalie

Schooners, PCB Baby!

Everyone has said over and over that Schooners is a more "Laid back crowd", a little older, and a little more local than Spinnaker.

Ummm.... "laid back"?? NOT so much!

Well, unless selling out of ALL of our cds (yes, all that we brought with us) during the FIRST set break, women rushing the stage to dance with Miguel, knocking his guitar over, ladies grabbing my face with BOTH hands to say "Your DRUMMER IS SO HOT", and people belting "Pour Some Sugar On Me" so loud that I couldn't hear myself in the monitors... you know... unless that is YOUR definition of "laid back" ; )~

We came back to the band house, and oh the stories. There are so many times these days that the statement is said, "I wish I could blog about THAT." But seriously.... it's just inappropriate!

But here's some of the more blog friendly pics from the night!






Can't wait to do it all over again tomorrow night!

Peace. Love. Fiddle.
~natalie

What You THOUGHT You Sounded Like In High School

Got all the session players nailed down for recording the EP next week :) I don't think I could really emote through words just how ecstatic I am to be recording some new music finally!!!! Some of the guys I have worked with before, but we've got some newbies as well.

Greg Morrow on drums
Michael Rhodes on bass
Gary Burnette electric/acoustic
Audley Freed electric/acoustic

When Ben told Audley the rest of the band today... he said "Best Band Ever" :) It's always good when the session guys are excited about who they're playing with! They do this every day. So it's no big deal to them. Yet it is UNBELIEVABLE to me. I can't believe that I get to work with players like them. I wonder how many hundreds of millions of records have been sold that they have played on combined? I mean, I know Greg has played with Martina McBride, Ray Charles, Dixie Chicks, Trisha Yearwood, Montgomery Gentry, Sugarland, Reba, Trace Atkins, Steve Earle, ummm do I need to keep going? And that's just Greg. Rhodes has played with everyone, too. I haven't met Gary or Audley, but I have heard so much about them. Audley is the guitar player in the Black Crowes! AHHHH. SO AWESOME.

Tonight Ben described Gary Burnette's guitar playing as:

"What you THOUGHT you sounded like in high school"

I freaking LOVE that. I know exactly what he means by that, too! This EP is gonna be so good!!!

Speaking of new music...
I went to the New Faces show tonight at the Basement to see my good friend Jenn Bostic play. Her new songs sounded incredible and I can't WAIT to hear her new album! I LOVE getting to go support my friends that are working so hard at this business, too when I am home. It is so inspiring!

Tomorrow, we get a new air conditioner!!!! WOO HOOO!!! Exciting times.

Whoops.

We were all just laughing so hard!! That was so funny.

We walked into the hotel a back way. We had come in the front earlier. So I guess we were a little turned around. Once we got up to third floor, we all looked at each other to see who remembered what room we were in. I thought it was 316. Miguel thought it was 317. It's 2:30am... Hootie and I both very quietly tried our keys in 317. No go. Red light.
So we then very quietly tried our keys in 316. Nope. Another red light. Then we all burst into laughter. :) Where the heck is our room???

Hootie said, "Wait! I know I put the 'Do Not Disturb sign up" and then someone said, I think it was 307??? So we walked all the way down the hall, around the corner.... and THEN things started looking familiar. There was a 'Do Not Disturb: sign on 307, and Hallelujah! Our key worked! :) Whew. Sooooo funny.

I'm surprised that hasn't happened more! I mean, we stay in a different room every night. But usually one of us remembers where we are!

Tonight we played at Wild Wing Cafe in Asheville, NC. It was another REALLY good show. (other than Halloween, which was INSANELY PACKED) It was the most packed show we've ever had there before. There were quite a few repeats, but a whole lot of newbies at this show. It's fun at a sports bar during March Madness :) Everyone is SO hyped up for the games, and then we just get to be the afterparty :)

We had a few mishaps, though. As James was setting up his drum throne - he noticed it was busted. So he ended up having to play in a folding chair with the rug I normally use folded to give him a little more height.

Miguel had a rough night, too. His guitar amp kept shorting out. I modified the set a little bit to try to cover. We ended up playing all of "Never Call Me By My Name" without guitar. But at least I can play fiddle on the whole thing since Hoot sings it!

He checked all the electrical hook-ups, they were all fine. So he figured it was the amp itself - he even switched some tubes inside the amp... but it kept happening the whole night.

At the end of the night, he plugged his guitar into my amp, and YUP!!! It's his guitar. At least he knows the problem. We're about to go on a band "spring break" so he'll have time back in Nashville to get it fixed!

But other than the technical difficulties, it was a great night!

At the very beginning of the night - before the show had even started, this little boy named Tyler came up to me and handed me a crayon and piece of paper (that he had already drawn all over). He asked for my autograph :) I autographed the paper, and then I asked him if he wanted a poster. He was really shy, but when I asked that, he nodded so big that he shook his entire body!!! :) So sweet.


Fred is one of my favorite bouncers. He always takes such good care of us. And he definitely did his job tonight. One guy had to be taken out of the bar for taking a swing at another customer (scary). And another poor guy passed out sitting up at his table during "Devil Went Down To Georgia". I had a hard time concentrating on the song because people were slapping him in the face trying to get him to wake up. It took them a good 20 minutes to get him back to a point where he was coherent. I had NEVER seen that before. I thought Fred was gonna have to carry him out of the bar!


These guys got SOOOOO excited when we sang David Allan Coe. He was playing next door at the Orange Peel tonight, so I sent it out to everyone who couldn't go to the concert, but came to see us instead :) I don't even think they noticed there was no guitar on the song - they were singing too loud!!! One of the guys even stole one of my posters off the wall and had me sign it :)


I LOVED this couple!! They were so complimentary of my originals, and they said they liked them more than the covers we were playing (and they knew EVERY WORD to the covers we played tonight). So yeah, these 2 rule. :)


The guy to the right of me asked me when I was playing Ft. Bragg. :) Ummmm... can you say coincidence!?!?! Ft. Bragg booked us 2 days ago for next year!!!


Hootie sang "Free Falling" tonight. A bunch of people wanted to buy cds and t-shirts, and we had already done all of Hoot's songs in the set. I called "Free Falling", cause I figured they could vamp on the intro. But Hootie started singing, which I had never heard him sing that one before!!! And it was a good thing, cause it took me the whole song to take care of everyone!!! :)

And in other news, my agent kept texting me today. We had 63 forms today (basically bookings) - 34 schools and 29 military bases, and it is only day 2 of the conference. Ya'll, that is NUTS! He said it was more than double of any other act so far. That blows my mind!!! I don't know what was so different about this conference. But everything just came together. And the military is being so great to us. They are already talking about shows that I am bursting to talk about. But I'll wait until everything is official. It's so great to know we'll have work for another year. We were nervous going into this conference because we know that everyone is suffering budget cuts, and you just never know.... But we have shows on the books now until July 4, 2010. And I know Ari - this is only the beginning! He'll get on the horn. In our experience with past conferences - most of the booking happen later anyway. So yeah. Life is WONDERFUL right now. But now I need to go finish all these new songs so we can get a new project recorded. :)

Peace. Love. Fiddle. And the right hotel room.
~natalie

Mt. Ida College!!!

Mt. Ida college was a lot of fun tonight. I love ANY excuse to go to Boston and ESPECIALLY when that "excuse" is playing a show! Plus, Hootie's sister Hannah went to Mt. Ida, so we already knew all about the school before we got there! (Thanks for those directions, Hannah... we needed HELP!)

The show tonight was in this cool student area called the "Shaw Living Room" and it reminded me of the shows we used to play at the MIT Sig Ep house.... you know... "back in the day" :)

They pretty quickly turned this very old, dark wood living room area into a concert hall. You take all the couches out, hire a sound crew and put a band on stage, and it looked like the room was meant for live shows!

Miguel and I were pretty excited. There is this one little part in "Freebird" that we have not been playing perfectly together - it was only a couple of notes but EVERY TIME we play the dang medley, I would get frustrated cause I would think "DANGIT!! I forgot to talk out this part with Miguel again" Well, we remembered in the car tonight on our way to dinner. And of course, he was going through the same thing - just kept forgetting to bring it up. So we worked it out quickly before the show, and got it perfect tonight! Whew. That felt so good.

After the show we made lots of new friends, but we had quite a few old friends show up as well. :)

I met Wayne (tallest dude in back) a couple of weekends ago at the Matterhorn in Vermont. He brought 5 of his friends to the show tonight!!!! They were rocking it out in the "balcony" :) I was so glad they were able to come! It's just amazing that we met first in Vermont and then he was at our show in Boston. I love being on tour :)


These guys were from Saudi Arabia! And tonight they were at a country concert at their college in Massachusetts. Sure seems to make the world small, huh? I wish I had caught their names - twin brothers and a friend. :)



Brittany (blonde on left) and Doug took such good care of us tonight! And Doug ended up buying 3 cds because none of his friends had any money. Welcome to college.


These guys liked the "free hugs". They came back for seconds.


Mr. Nate Telow and his beautiful "honorary southern" girlfriend Lisa! Nate was my VERY first guitar player in my VERY first band, Green Line South. He was part of the band the the first summer when all the guys moved into my parents' house and we played shows all around Nashville. Good Times! Oh, and did I mention that he won the Massachusetts State Body Building Championship??? Amazing.


Miguel's friend George from Chile (who now goes to Berklee) and his girlfriend came out!!! We all went out for a drink with Paul, my manager after the show. We dropped George and his girlfriend off at the T but after we left, he called Miguel to say that the Train had stopped running for the evening. We were already almost to Paul's (where we had to drop the trailer) so then we came back to the T to pick them up, and now they are sleeping in Miguel's room tonight!!! It's like a Chilean slumber party next door :) I love it - I could hear Miguel's laugh through the wall!!!!


No one came to see Hootie. :(

(He's probably just missing Bridget)

And just because I can...


I leave you with the last shot of the evening.... My pirate husband.

peace, love, fiddle

Band Practice in the living room!

Working on all kinds of new surprises.