In the afternoon yesterday I was really nice out - the skies were fairly clear, and it was t-shirt weather out. But as the evening came, the clouds rolled in and covered the sky and the temperature dropped a bit. We got ready for our set - I got everything tuned and we ran through some songs and then headed across town.
One of the positives about this town is being able to get from one side to the other fairly quickly. When I lived here, I used to live about 15 miles from work - which was from one side of town to the other. It took me about 15 to 20 minutes to do the drive. In LA it probably would have been double that - and depending on the hour - longer. The traffic here was never terrible - well besides when I drove in to town last year right when the floods were happening - not too long after the water stopped rising. That time getting around the city was a little chaotic - because everyone was feeling a little chaotic - or more in some cases. So dealing with a little more traffic was all right to me.
We made it to the club and checked where we were on the list - see, the New faces Night is a night of 20 minute sets mostly for newcomers - and you don't know the lineup until about 7:30 that night. We were hoping to go earlier but when we saw the list we knew that wasn't going to be the case - we were last. We sent out messages to our friends and I posted on FB about the approximate time - and we were hoping that our friends that were already there would hang out and wait for our set.
We saw several good acts - one was this duo from Ireland who were in town recording an album - The Lost Brothers - great harmonies and great guitar playing. There were others too, but I can't remember their names - quite a few were touring acts - passing through town just like me. The night kept rolling along and thankfully, we have very patient friends and they waited until it was our turn to get up and play.
We made it through our four songs - Lauren switching from mandolin, to harmonica, to banjo - while I strummed the sounds out of my guitar, hoping to not break a string. At the end, Mike, the soundguy that night and co-owner of The Basement, said - Well since there's no one after you guys and it's pouring out, why don't you play a couple more. So we did - and felt good about the set when we were done. There were several people still there which I was happy about - you never know - especially when you're the last ones on a long night of music.
The Lost Brothers were still hanging out with one of their friends who had talked about heading downtown to Broadway and checking out Robert's Western World - which is a more classic country - sometimes rockabilly kind of place. It's a place I don't mind hanging out in. I also knew that my friends Dave Gleason and his wife Dawn were across the street at a place called The Wheel where Dave was playing guitar. Dave and Dawn moved to Nashville from LA in September and we had talked about meeting up at some point while I was in town. So we stopped by and said hello and listened to a couple songs - and it was great to hear Dave play guitar again. We met up with the guys at Robert's and heard the band there until 2 and then knew we had to go.
Now, as 6pm is coming up, I'm pretty damn tired - and tomorrow is going to be an even earlier day since we have to be in Knoxville at 10:30am and it's a 3 hour drive - plus we lose an hour due to the time zone difference. Hopefully I can get a nap in at some point - even if it's just in my car with the seat tilted back - we'll see.
OK - it's time to figure out what's for dinner -
Dave Gleason on the left playing guitar at The Wheel
yours truly - on my way back to Nashville
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