California Tour, Day 2: Roseville
The first gig of the tour is complete, and the entire day was a good one. Here's a summary of the past 16 hours:
Got up this morning at my aunt & uncle's house. Enjoyed good family time, and changed the strings on my guitar for the first time in about 6 months. What a difference that made! I'm really lame about changing strings...I use the Dee-A-Dairy-O color-coded medium gauge. I guess they sound good, but what I really like is the color coded system of string identification.
Drove to Sacramento through the rain in my rental car, and used the new-fangled aux-input to run my iPod right into the car stereo. Rock! No need for the El Krapo FM iTrip transmitter. I rolled NE on Interstate 80 listening to the iPod on shuffle, and the greatest moment was "Borrowed Time" by Styx, a song I've always loved, but today it rocked me to the depths of my soul. When they were good, they were G O O D.
After meeting up with my pals the Herlocker family in Roseville (and lunching at delicious Panera Bread Company, where "I pick two"), we had the rare opportunity to go into Sacramento to attend an afternoon performance by my friends Justin Roberts and Liam Davis, on tour around the country in support of Justin's critically acclaimed albums of kids' music. I even got to sit in on harmonica for the song "Tickle My Toes." The 300 pre-schoolers in attendance were waaay into it. Here's a pic of Liam on drums, me on harp, and Justin on guitar.
We zipped back to Roseville to set up for my concert later in the evening. It's great to be back...I played here at Bethel Lutheran Church for the first time two years ago, and it's been cool to see some of the cool stuff the congregation has been doing with music, art, etc.
Tonight was the first show I ever played where the congregation had copies of the new red hymnal, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, in the pews! I was excited to play the awesome song "Let Us Go Now, To The Banquet" by Guillermo Cuellar, a composer who I got to hang out with back in Minneapolis just a couple days ago. Some of the other songs on the set list tonight were:
were you there
workin' my committee
the serious kind
hey hey samuel
smart girls
carol of the bells
A super-highlight of the gig was that Justin & Liam, who I played with earlier in the day, drove out to my gig and did some songs with me! We wrapped up the evening with these cool tunes:
Noah: a Justin original
Helpless: Neil Young cover tune with Liam on lead vocals and piano
California Dreamin': a perfect tune for three pale Midwesterners to sing as they tour the Golden State
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Lookin' For: done in Bakersfield Honkeytonk mode....like Jonathan/Justin/Liam covering Buck Owens covering U2
All Praise to Thee My God This Night: a lovely lullaby/benediction written by Thomas Tallis 500 years ago, and number 565 in the new cranberry hymnal
It's a very rare occasion for me to be playing the same town on the same day as some of my touring-musician friends, and to have the chance to guest at each others' gigs....now, that's incredible! Thanks Liam and Justin for rockin' the Capital City with me today.
Also...a woman named Bethany came to the show tonight with her family. Check this out: she had seen me play here in Sacramento on my tour with the legendary West Coast Boys in 1990! AND she saw me playing at a convention in San Jose in about 1995! Few people have witnessed my performances across such a span of time. Pretty cool.
One more thing: the folks I'm staying with just got the first season of the early-70s TV show "Emergency!" on DVD. I remember liking this show when I was in Kindergarden, but I haven't seen it since. It's a pretty good show!
Got up this morning at my aunt & uncle's house. Enjoyed good family time, and changed the strings on my guitar for the first time in about 6 months. What a difference that made! I'm really lame about changing strings...I use the Dee-A-Dairy-O color-coded medium gauge. I guess they sound good, but what I really like is the color coded system of string identification.
Drove to Sacramento through the rain in my rental car, and used the new-fangled aux-input to run my iPod right into the car stereo. Rock! No need for the El Krapo FM iTrip transmitter. I rolled NE on Interstate 80 listening to the iPod on shuffle, and the greatest moment was "Borrowed Time" by Styx, a song I've always loved, but today it rocked me to the depths of my soul. When they were good, they were G O O D.
After meeting up with my pals the Herlocker family in Roseville (and lunching at delicious Panera Bread Company, where "I pick two"), we had the rare opportunity to go into Sacramento to attend an afternoon performance by my friends Justin Roberts and Liam Davis, on tour around the country in support of Justin's critically acclaimed albums of kids' music. I even got to sit in on harmonica for the song "Tickle My Toes." The 300 pre-schoolers in attendance were waaay into it. Here's a pic of Liam on drums, me on harp, and Justin on guitar.We zipped back to Roseville to set up for my concert later in the evening. It's great to be back...I played here at Bethel Lutheran Church for the first time two years ago, and it's been cool to see some of the cool stuff the congregation has been doing with music, art, etc.
Tonight was the first show I ever played where the congregation had copies of the new red hymnal, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, in the pews! I was excited to play the awesome song "Let Us Go Now, To The Banquet" by Guillermo Cuellar, a composer who I got to hang out with back in Minneapolis just a couple days ago. Some of the other songs on the set list tonight were:were you there
workin' my committee
the serious kind
hey hey samuel
smart girls
carol of the bells
A super-highlight of the gig was that Justin & Liam, who I played with earlier in the day, drove out to my gig and did some songs with me! We wrapped up the evening with these cool tunes:
Noah: a Justin original
Helpless: Neil Young cover tune with Liam on lead vocals and piano
California Dreamin': a perfect tune for three pale Midwesterners to sing as they tour the Golden State
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Lookin' For: done in Bakersfield Honkeytonk mode....like Jonathan/Justin/Liam covering Buck Owens covering U2
All Praise to Thee My God This Night: a lovely lullaby/benediction written by Thomas Tallis 500 years ago, and number 565 in the new cranberry hymnal
It's a very rare occasion for me to be playing the same town on the same day as some of my touring-musician friends, and to have the chance to guest at each others' gigs....now, that's incredible! Thanks Liam and Justin for rockin' the Capital City with me today.
Also...a woman named Bethany came to the show tonight with her family. Check this out: she had seen me play here in Sacramento on my tour with the legendary West Coast Boys in 1990! AND she saw me playing at a convention in San Jose in about 1995! Few people have witnessed my performances across such a span of time. Pretty cool.
One more thing: the folks I'm staying with just got the first season of the early-70s TV show "Emergency!" on DVD. I remember liking this show when I was in Kindergarden, but I haven't seen it since. It's a pretty good show!
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