Pinot Tour Blog #2

On Monday morning we left Lincoln, NE and made it to Minneapolis around 6:00. We had a little basketball match at Schroedes' house and then headed over to IPR for a recording session with our sound engineer, Troy Watson (who also has a blog: http://thetroywatson.wordpress.com) We came up with 2 new tunes in the studio and didn't end up leaving until 5:00am!

The next day we had a show at 'Honey' in Minneapolis which was a last-minute show that was set up by Troy. The venue was in the basement and had a really cool vibe. Here is a video and a link to a facebook video from the show that night:

Facebook Video Link - Click HERE



We had the day off on Wednesday so we took the van in to be fixed and is now running great. After that we went over to John's cousin's place and had a little BBQ session.

On Thursday we drove to Madison for our show at The University of Wisconsin's Union Terrace with The Wood Brothers. We stopped over at Patrick's brother's house in Madison to meet up with guitarist Kelvin Kaspar who will be filling in for Schroeder for the dates he will be missing (John plays with Franky Valli and The Four Seasons if you didn't know..)

Thursday was actually a pretty crazy day for us.. G was supposed to have a flight into Madison, WI at around 3:30pm, but it was Thursday morning and he still didn't have his confirmation email from the person who bought him the ticket. So anyway, he was trying to get a hold of this dude who was in London and finally found out that no one ever booked the ticket for him. He said the only flight he could find was into Milwaukee, WI at 4:30, so I figured that was a little out of the way, but it would work. When G called me back he told me that there was only one ticket left and it had already been booked. SO... he said the only option left was for him to fly into Milwaukee at 9:25pm.

I called my friend Alex Moede who actually helped book the gig at the UW Union Terrace and asked if he could pick him up.. it was like we were in the movie "Get him to the Greek".

So anyway, it came to 11:00pm and we were all set up and ready to go, but G wasn't quite there yet.. so we started with "Alabama Slamma" and G got there towards the end of the tune. We rocked the rest of the show and the crowd had some serious energy. If it wasn't for the strict curfew at the Union Terrace we would have probably played all night, people were chanting for "one more song" over and over again.

Overall, Thursday was probably the most stressful day for me so far with all the setbacks and stuff, but everything came together in the end and we had a great show.

I can't believe we're only on show #4 tonight in Appleton, WI at Red & White. I can't wait to see what each and every show from here on out brings. So far the tour has been amazing, each show the band is sounding tighter and tighter.

That's all for now.. we've got a ton of pics and videos, but haven't been able to upload them or edit any of the video yet. SOON!

-Sam