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As requested here is the first post. Hopefully I’ll find some discipline and keep it up. Enjoy:
4/2
What a crazy busy couple of weeks and just like that here we are back in Australia. “Leaving day” is always the hardest and most dreaded day(s) of the year. The rush to get everything done before we go never fails to be less than chaotic. And if it involves leaving the country it goes to another level. However, I have to say that it seems to be getting easier every time now and this one was the easiest ever. A big part of the reason is that is that Lucinda has worked really hard to get over her fear of flying, and she really seems to be beating it. She has always told me that she doesn’t want these fears to control her life and she has been nothing less than determined to get over this one –to see her able to fly now with virtually no anxiety has been great to witness.As I mentioned above the last few weeks have been a blur. There have been recording sessions for two more tribute records, one for Jesse Winchester and one for obscure 70’s British singer songwriter/ guitar virtuoso Michael Chapman. Both tracks came out great and the Chapman track is pretty different than anything Lu has ever done. I believe that is coming out towards the end of May. In any event it was great to be back in the studio with Doug Pettibone again –first time recording with him since Little Honey. I should also mention that with the cancellation of the John Mayer tour Doug became available for Australia so we decided what the hell let’s take him along. He and Stuart are old friends and if the rehearsals are any indication this leg is going to be a lot of fun. The only snag was that Doug had a gig in Puerto Rico that he could not get out of so he’s couldn’t get here in time for Melbourne so he’s heading straight to Sydney. Not a lot of direct flights from Puerto Rico to Australia.
Getting back to events of the last month, Lucinda has been on one her writing binges and already has in the neighborhood of 15 songs done or nearly done and has been recoding them all in the kitchen again. Of course I probably always say this but I am very very excited about what she is coming up with –there’s just something special about these songs. It’s hard to put into words but I can’t get them out of my head. I should add that she is also extremely excited about this group of songs. But the real left field event that happened right before hopped on the plane is that Lucinda was asked to collaborate on a song with one of the biggest rock bands in the land. She went and met with the guitar player and they really hit it off. She also played a handful of her new songs for him and one of them he loved and asked if he could have a go at it. Can’t really want to say who it is yet but it will be interesting to see what happens.
So here we are in Melbourne –at the venue about an hour before show time. Beautiful old theatre right on the ocean and across the street is an old amusement park with a classic old wooden rollercoaster, and as I am typing this I can hear the screams of the people as they hit the big dip. The irony is apparent to me and after the last few weeks I guess the rollercoaster analogy is pretty appropriate.
GREAT STUFF, TO. Thanks for taking the time to update the faithful horde. Here’s hoping your schedule will permit future posts. Safe travels! 😀
And as an Aussie who was at the gig last night, all I can say is what an awesome show! Lucinda is in fantastic form, can’t wait for Byron Bay with the addition of Doug. Enjoy your tour guys and thanks. 😀
all the luck in australia. in sydney, should you have freetime, try to drive to the blue mountains. never been there but the pics sure are inviting – and plane tickets sure are prohibiting.
melbourne’s setlist, please!
one of the biggest rock bands in the land
land being the u.s. / australia /or/ world?
@Bettsy wrote:
And as an Aussie who was at the gig last night, all I can say is what an awesome show! Lucinda is in fantastic form, can’t wait for Byron Bay with the addition of Doug. Enjoy your tour guys and thanks. 😀
Bettsy could you post a setlist under the “Shows” thread–or at least reconstruct the songs you can remember? Thanks to toverby for the usual insights, and we look forward to further blogging and/or setlists!
Two in a row -I’m on a roll. I’m sure Stoger is grading my grammar.
4/3
Made it to Sydney about two hours ago and it’s déjà vu all over again. We are in exactly the same hotel room that we were in three years ago- we were also in the exact same room in Melbourne. Something very strange about that-really brings back a lot of memories from that tour three years ago. I had forgotten a lot of it and that was a good thing.. I will however, never forget being trapped in this very same 26th floor room when downtown Sydney had an electrical blackout. The elevators were down and we were not allowed to use the stairs. Hope you like the view because you ain’t going anywhere for awhile. We barely made it out in time for the 4 hour drive to Canberra. Not a memorable night as it was a log drive down and back to play to a very unresponsive audience. The ride was back was somewhat saved by some very colorful stories from the one and only Butch. No Canberra this time.So the Melbourne show is in the books. There was a palpable but healthy nervous energy before the show as is usual with first shows –and the first one with new guitar player Stuart. On the daily schedule sheets we have what we call the IMOTD which stands for Inspired Moment Of The Day but basically is the quote of the day from band or crew member — the quote on yesterday’s day sheet was Lucinda telling Stuart that she could already tell how great he was going to be –even though as we reminded her, he had yet to play a show. He got a lot of ribbing over that. There’s nothing like a little pressure to motivate the new guitar player. I share that anecdote because it didn’t take long to see that Stuart was going to live up to her pre-show evaluation. They had a pretty instant chemistry. Afterwards Lucinda was thrilled. Let’s just say that it was apparent that a lot of songs that had sort of gotten “lost” were suddenly back and sounding better than they had in some time and she was very happy about that. Not taking anything away from the previous guitar player but some songs had just lost their way or were not quite right. Probably more than it was realized. Two that I would put in that category were Unsuffer Me and Righteously. It turned out to be a really good night with a very big and excellent audience in the house.
We did have one scare yesterday as Doug’s plane from Puerto Rico to LA was cancelled. After a 5 AM panic call to Tour Mg Eric, he was able to be re-routed thru NY. So his flight was now Puerto Rico to NY to LA to Sydney. He got in this morning and was able to get a full row on the plane so he slept for 12 hours. That was lucky. Lu is really looking forward to having both Stuart and Doug for these next few shows. Should be fun.
I’m willing to go A- on the Overby prose. The phrase “ain’t going anywhere” could be considered a lapse from TO’s usual King’s English but hey, this may be a Dylan song title allusion, and at least TO avoided a double negative in his rendering of it. My red pen is poised for blog entry numero tres.
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