Tag Archives: tour

Making My Way To You
Peter Rowan Tour - a PG report from the road - Part One
November 9, 2013 at 7:36pm
I've really been looking forward to this trip for a long time. Peter's album, The Old School, came out in spring of this year, and this is really our first tour for it. Yungchen Lhamo, is a wonderful friend that we met at the Leaf Festival in North Carolina. Peter and Yungchen hit it off with their connection to spiritual music and Buddhism and Yungchen has brought a great balancing energy to our performances with her zen improvisational style of singing. She's also really funny, thoughtful, and is really easy to be around.

Our first gig was up near Maggie Valley, North Carolina at the Cataloochee Ranch. Keith and I flew into Raleigh on Sunday night, and drove up there. We stayed in a wonderfully comfortable and cozy ranch style wood and stone lodge that had been built back in the 30's by a family that still runs the place. Waking up there the next morning felt a little like Christmas with the fire burning, lots of food, and good vibes. We met Peter downstairs for lunch and played some tunes, and caught up.

There were two supper seatings for about 30-40 people each and the food that was served was excellent. At supper we talked about what we should do, to kind of make a plan. That is an interesting somewhat ossilating subject because Peter is a fellow who doesn't like to hem things in and rather enjoys the zen and spontaneity of the exploration in the moment. But we did need to go over a couple things and had a few minutes before the show to mull it over.

Yungchen showed us one of her new songs of which the subject was the secret moment of revelation that comes when you never expected something to happen and it happens. We clearly didn't have the vibe right at first, much too common bluegrassy. She has a very effective and calm way of directing us to access more of the spiritual energy that is required to help express the sentiment. She said things like "You must feel the Earth, and when you like it, we go on to the next part." The phrasing was not square, and although the melody was fairly simple, almost like an American old-time mountain melody, the ornaments were subtle and beautiful and the vibe was intense, perhaps nocturnal, looming, and expansive like a blanket that was rolling out through the night. We did the best we could and had our work cut out for us there. It's really different, challenging, and enjoyable to pay so much precise and careful attention to the zen vibe of this Tibetan spiritual music and to see how that carries across into the rest of Peter's music, and hopefully some of my own music too.

Our concert that night was an all acoustic one with just Peter, Keith, Yungchen and myself. The audience was mostly folks who live up that way and they were quite receptive to our show and many even got up and danced on the finale. I think that was the first time Yungchen had danced to american-hillbilly music, it was great. I put together a short compilation of some of the best moments and uploaded it to Facebook. Peter and I scarfed up on six or seven different delicious desserts after the concert before joining a small group of folks in front of the fire for a really enjoyable conversation about Monroe, bluegrass and mountain music.

The next day I had a really nice horseback ride up to the high ridge called Hemphill Bald which looked out for a hundred miles through the Smokey Mountains in the area that was named by the Cherokee indians, Cataloochee, or "wave upon wave", of mountains. It was gorgeous. I was a little bit embarrassed and sorry when I got back and Peter and Keith were waiting with their bags at the door to leave, the ride had taken about 2 and a half hours, somewhat longer that I had thought it might be. It was about 12:30 and we rode up to Asheville for lunch and loaded in at ISIS that afternoon.

Asheville is a hippy town in a way that has a a bunch of enthusiastic folks who were ready to drink and have a good time. They have a regular bluegrass night on Tuesdays and some good local musicians opened the show up. I got to see my aunt Claire and her friends, and a couple of other folks that live around the Asheville area. It was the first time that I tried to set up Yungchen's nice camera to tape the show. It was awkward trying to find a spot right before the show that would have a clear view amongst the crowd that was already hanging out. Once I did find a spot, it was hard to tell if the angle would be sufficient to capture the whole band because there was no one on stage. Yungchen would gently encourage me to do better the next day. The crowd was loud and we played two sets and had a good time.

We went on down to Athens the next day - about a 3 and a half hour drive. The promoter fellow, Adriane, has a club called the New Earth there. The stage had some nice reclaimed wood, and there was some psychedelic original art on the walls. We had a good little jam before the show working up Little Rabbit and one of Peter's friends brought a nice Weber mandocello around and we had fun with a little jam outside. I had been singing one of my songs on most of the shows since a couple months back. This night I couldn't get it going, I was trying to play it too fast, and it ended up just being a little wonky and that threw me off a little bit funky for the rest of the night. Peter suggested that I slow it down to give it a more grand treatment.

The hotels we're staying in are nice, usually the Country Inn and Suites. Good rooms that don't smell funky, with wifi - what more could a 21st century bluegrass musician want. The drives are manageable and it seems like we always get at least an hour or two of downtime every day to catch a quick nap. Paul, Michael, and myself have been riding in the van, and Keith, Peter, and Yungchen in the Charger.

The next day we hauled up to Charleston to the Pour House, about four and a half hours. I played the guys what Sarah and I have been working on and they were gracious listeners. It's always good to hear the music in a new sound system, I can tell some things sonically about the music, where to relieve some compression, etc. Mike played some good tunes off his laptop including one new tune he was working on and also some good live Stanley brothers including "They Say Love is Blind, But I See Through You." Hard to beat that.

The Charleston show was interesting. It was another rock club. We had a good meal beforehand, and started the show about 45 minutes after we were scheduled, a late hour of 10:45. Leftover Salmon had played two nights in a row before us and I think a lot of the young hippy crowd was fairly spent from chasing the elusion. Usually Peter has been starting out solo, then introducing Yungchen, then blowing a conch shell while we come out to start playing the Methodist Preacher. He'll bring Yungchen out early and introduce her, and she frequently does an offering, then they'll do a couple together. We slowed my song down quite a bit, and I just reproached it mentally from a go with it don't try to make it something it's not trying to do mentality. I have never sung a song that slowly on stage, but I really enjoyed it. It made me really concentrate on getting good tone and staying in the moment. I loved it and it went over much better and I got a slap on the back from Peter which made me feel good.

We've been doing a healthy smattering of songs of Peter's new CD, The Old School. Usually the title cut, often Drop the Bone, Letter From Beyond, Ragged Old Dream, and occasionally Oh, Freedom. Keith usually sings a good old Stanley brothers tune like Little Maggie or On a Lonesome Night and we've been doing Panama Red on almost every show. Mike has been doing Gold Rush a good bit and did Cherokee Shuffle one time. Padma Sambade is one that Yungchen sings with us on and the closer is usually Land of the Navaho, and then sometimes we'll follow that with Midnight Moonlight. A couple of other tunes that we have done are Lonesome L.A. Cowboy and one time we did Mississippi Moon. After the break, Peter said "Let's go back out there and have some fun." Which was a great mantra for me the second set, because it's easy to try to hard and miss the real muse, and to go out having that fresh on the ears helped me remember what the goal was.

Our timing has been getting a lot better, and we reached a new level of precision on this particular gig. We had been experiencing some nice pockets here and there and by the time we got halfway through the set I was dialed right in on Peter's right hand and started to intuit in a natural way where his groove was. As we were playing The Walls of Time, I was able to really understand what Peter meant when he said he became the Walls of Time, because there it was - the groove locked and in this nothing happening everywhere moment I felt like, at least for a bit that I had stopped scaring off the wildlife and was able to be a welcome walker in the forest.

Augusta, Georgia was our next stop. I watched the new documentary about Peter called "The Tao of Bluegrass" in the van on the way to the venue. I was really inspired to see Peter talk about the music, and hear other great musicians talk about Peter. What he has done with regard to his own spiritual work and how he has been able to put so much of that feeling into his songs that he shares is absolutely astounding. He has searched and explored, had revelations, and opened his heart tempered with his formative bluegrass experience to channel universal truth in an accessible, fascinating, and compelling way. I was stoked when we got to the place.

The Imperial Theatre is a really nice old building with an excellent sound system. It's got a big old ceiling and a large balcony and it was a big change to go from lots of loud people in a loud rock club to a classy soft-seater theatre like that. Unfortunately the word did not get out too well in town and the audience was little and not so loud. But, we had some good moments and I especially enjoyed the quintet on Let Me Walk Lord By Your Side. After the show, Yungchen said, "Let's make song." She's always wanting to make some new music, and I love going on the improvisational explorations with her. I was happy on this one because it was just the two of us and I felt like I had more freedom do move around in different chords a little bit because usually we just rock on the one the whole time, which works and gives her plenty of space to do her thing. This time I was happy to be able to sing lots of melodies with her and the funniest thing was that it ended up being a song about chicken which we had eaten all day. That's a testament to Yungchen's sense of humor. We start out with a hybrid Tibetan/Appalachian mountain spiritual offering and it turns into a silly freestyle song about eating chicken. I love it.

Casey Henry

I made it to England and back in one piece. The big festival we played there was really wonderful, and the little mini-festival was fun in a more low-key sort of way. Here are some pictures to illustrate the experience.

We flew out of Dulles Airport, which required a six-hour drive from our meeting place in Abingdon, Va. We took off Wednesday night, arriving in London at 10 a.m. the next morning. We had some trouble locating our driver, who was to take us to the hotel, so for a couple hours we made ourselves at home in the middle of the floor in Heathrow's terminal one.

Buddy Woodward, Casey Henry, Rachel Johnson, Todd Livingston and luggage.

Buddy Woodward, Casey Henry, Rachel Renee Johnson, Todd Livingston and luggage.

As soon as we got to the hotel, Rachel and I headed straight to the bar to get some lunch. There I enjoyed my very first Guinness of the trip. So what if it was only 9 a.m. in Nashville??

Casey with the first Guinness of the trip.

Casey with the first Guinness of the trip.

It's often the little differences that delight me the most when traveling abroad. This trip it was the milk that accompanied the tea/coffee tray in the hotel room. Instead of being powdered creamer like in the U.S., or even liquid milk in a little round foil-topped container, it was liquid milk in a tube. How cool!

Milk in a tube.

Milk in a tube.

Friday we played at Fairport's Cropredy Convention. Our driver, Martin Driver, picked us up and took us to the festival. Here we all are:

The Dixie Bee-Liners

Martin Driver, Rachel Renee Johnson, Sav Sankaran, Todd Livingston, Buddy Woodward, Brandi Hart, Casey Henry

The stage was, I swear, like four stories tall. Just look at how Buddy and Rachel are dwarfed by it in the picture below. It was closed on three sides, so it was almost like playing indoors.

Rachel and Buddy next to the really huge stage.

Rachel and Buddy next to the really huge stage.

This was our view from the stage. I think there were about 20,000 people in the audience. I really would have needed a wide-angle lens to capture the whole thing. This is about a quarter of the crowd.

The crowd at Cropredy.

The crowd at Cropredy.

After our set we signed autographs for nearly an hour. In addition to CDs and programs we got to sign funny hats, a pair of rain boots (still on the girl's feet), the playing side of a CD, a beach ball that we had thrown into the crowd, the front of someone's jacket while he was still wearing it, and a twenty pound note (which felt really weird. Is that even legal??) Here's us after the signing in our stage duds:

The Dixie Bee-Liners.

The Dixie Bee-Liners.

The next day's gig was at the Face Bar in Reading. A van came and picked us up for the two-hour drive. The mini-festival, called Cold Dog Soup, had five bands. The banjo player from Amy Harrison and the Secondhand Stringband interviewed me for his website. He also brought me beer. (He clearly did his research about how to get on my good side!) I was a bit nervous about getting the beer back home, since I had to check it and it was in glass bottles, but I carefully packed each bottle in a sock and wrapped up the cardboard bottle carrier in a bunch of t-shirts that we'd brought to sell but didn't. All arrived home completely intact, to be enjoyed in the near future.

Harvey's beer sampler.

Harvey's beer sampler.

I met a couple Murphy Method students while there, which was cool. Overall the trip was too short and too busy. We didn't get a chance to see anything but the roads between the airport, hotels, and gigs. I take that back. Rachel and I did walk around Banbury one evening, and we went to see the movie Inception. (Wow.) Hopefully the next trip (whenever that might be) will be at a more leisurely pace. But we met some really nice people and got to play a huge festival, so overall: a success.

Casey Henry

Today the Dixie Bee-Liners take off for England where we’ll play two days: Friday at a big folk festival in Cropredy put on by the Fairport Convention, Saturday at a mini-festival called Cold Dog Soup, held at the Face Bar in Reading. It’s great to have the opportunity to play in the UK, but a bummer our trip is so short. We come back Sunday morning.

I’m taking CDs with me (duh), packed in my checked luggage, as well as a few DVDs. It was hard to decide which DVDs to bring, since we have so many. I settled on ten, which was all that would fit in my suitcase and still leave room for clothes. Two each of: Beyond Vamping, Easy Songs, Slow Jam, Picking up the Pace, and Beginning Banjo Vol 1. I know it’s sometimes challenging for UK customers to get our products, and I don’t even know if I’ll see any of our students while I’m there, but if I don’t sell all the CDs and DVDs the people at the end of the night on Saturday are going to get some extremely good deals!

My plane reading material (because I know your’re curious) will be Barbara Kingsolver The Lacuna and Colleen McCullough The Thorn Birds, both of which have been sitting on my unread shelf a long time.

I’d better go change my strings, so that I can take my wire cutters out of my case. They don’t like them in carry-on luggage. I once had my bracket wrench almost confiscated and I had to mail it back to myself from the airport. If ever there was a more innocuous piece of metal than a bracket wrench I don’t know what it would be! But it’s now worth $5.95 more to me than it was before.

Casey Henry

Casey Henry

Now that I'm temporarily back home and in front of my desktop computer, here are some pictures from last weekend's touring.

The Dixie Bee-Liners, on the air at WNRN in Charlottesville. Sav Sankaran, Buddy Woodward, Brandi Hart, Rachel Renee Johnson.

The Dixie Bee-Liners, on the air at WNRN in Charlottesville. Sav Sankaran, Buddy Woodward, Brandi Hart, Rachel Renee Johnson.

This cracked me up. It was on the bulletin board at the WNRN studio.

This cracked me up. It was on the bulletin board at the WNRN studio.

Last Friday night's venue, in Staunton, Virginia.

Last Friday night's venue, in Staunton, Virginia.

Notice the little bee they drew on their chalkboard marquee. That's attention to detail, right there!

Notice the little bee they drew on their chalkboard marquee. That's attention to detail, right there!

The Dixie Bee-Liners on stage at the Mockingbird: Casey Henry, Buddy Woodward, Brandi Hart, Rachel Renee Johnson, Sav Sankaran.

The Dixie Bee-Liners on stage at the Mockingbird: Casey Henry, Buddy Woodward, Brandi Hart, Rachel Renee Johnson, Sav Sankaran.

...and a view from the opposite direction...

...and a view from the opposite direction...

We stayed at the Rooster Hill bed and breakfast in Crozet, Virginia, for the weekend. They have chickens. Here's Rachel, gathering our Saturday morning breakfast!

We stayed at the Rooster Hill bed and breakfast in Crozet, Virginia, for the weekend. They have chickens. Here's Rachel, gathering our Saturday morning breakfast!

And finally, the sign outside the Purple Fiddle in Thomas, West Virginia. This was next to the street, just in case anyone was driving by and suddenly realized they had the urge to stop and hear some live music.

And finally, the sign outside the Purple Fiddle in Thomas, West Virginia. This was next to the street, just in case anyone was driving by and suddenly realized they had the urge to stop and hear some live music.

Casey Henry

Casey Henry

The Dixie Bee-Liners went out last weekend for a quick run up to Iowa and Wisconsin to play a couple of gigs. These weekend out-and-back trips are typical for a touring bluegrass band, so I thought I'd give you a brief picture of how our time breaks down.

Total time away from home: 77 hours

Time spent driving/riding: 32.5 hours (or 42%)

Time spent sleeping 20 hours (this is pretty good, actually!)

Time spent practicing: 2 hours

Time spent actually playing music on stage 3 hours 10 minutes (or 4%)

The two shows we played went really, really well. At the Legion Arts Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, we had a nearly-sold-out crowd that was extremely enthusiastic and bought lots of CDs. (That's our favorite type of crowd!) The building that housed the show---built in 1891---was originally a Czech social hall and it had that wonderful, slightly musty old building smell the second you walked in the door. Now it's used for concerts and art exhibits. The exhibit currently on display featured artifacts someone had pulled our of their river two years ago when it flooded. (The many still-empty store fronts in downtown Cedar Rapids provided a sobering parallel to Nashville's more recent disaster.)

Possibly the most interesting element of our show that night was the bat that flew around while we played. It made a couple of swooping passes during each set and, I suppose, kept the room mosquito free. Our concert was the next-to-last before they pause for a major building renovation, during which they will close up all the holes where bats come in (among other things). I, for one, am extremely glad we got to play in the old version of the hall. Bats add so much scope for imagination.

The Quaker Oats factory in Cedar Rapids.

The Quaker Oats factory in Cedar Rapids.

(Exciting side note [well, exciting to me, anyway...]: Cedar Rapids is apparently the home of Quaker Oats. Our hotel was right across from their factory. And downtown really did smell like oatmeal! Dear Quaker Oats folks, I have one request: organic steel-cut oats. Thank you.)

Our show the next day was in Two Rivers, WI. We were a bit late arriving because the GPS (I believe I've mentioned here before that I HATE THE GPS!!!) took us on a longer-than-necessary route (instead of 312 miles on four-lane state highways---5 hours 45 min---it sent us 389 miles on interstates---6 hours 30 minutes).

But after a speedy set-up and soundcheck we were treated to yet another enthusiastic audience. This time they not only gave us an encore, but baked goods as well. The famous Hagar, who makes half-pound cookies (no kidding), bestowed upon us a bag full of them, one of which became my supper. We actually sold out of Susanville CDs that night, which is a great feeling.

My first attempt at a granny square.

My first attempt at a granny square.

During all of our driving around I finished up one crocheting project, and figured out how to make my very first granny square (perhaps a little messy, but still recognizable). I predict many more of these in the future.

On the trip back Sunday I, for once, actually arrived home before the rest of the band. Usually we head east, so I meet the van at Brandi and Buddy's house in Abingdon, Va., which is a five-hour drive from my house. This time we met up in Louisville---three hours for me, but six for them. As I sat on my couch that evening, with a frosty cold beer, I thought about them, still in the van, traveling through the night to make it back home.

Here are some pictures, courtesy of Murphy's friend Jane, of The Dixie Bee-Liners' gig Friday night at Bull Run Restaurant in Shirley, Mass.

dbl_bullrun4

Casey Henry, tuning.

Casey Henry, tuning.

Casey Henry, Buddy Woodward, Brandi Hart, Rachel Johnson, and Sav Sankaran.

Casey Henry, Buddy Woodward, Brandi Hart, Rachel Johnson, and Sav Sankaran.

The Dixie Bee-Liners in action.

The Dixie Bee-Liners in action.

Casey Henry

Casey Henry

The Dixie Bee-Liners are in the northeast this weekend and we have totally lucked out on the weather. We played in Cambridge, MA, Friday night, Shirley, MA, Saturday night, and are headed to Harrisburg, PA, today, and it's supposed to be 46 degrees. How awesome is that!

In Cambridge we played at Club Passim, which is a prestigious folk club that has been there for 52 years. I had actually never heard of it, but it turned out to be a really cool place. They have a restaurant adjacent to the club called the Veggie Cafe. They served wonderful food. I had roasted butternut squash, caramelized onions, and goat cheese over coconut rice. Scrumptions. A good meal like that before you play makes a huge difference.

We opened for a band called Christabel and the Jons. As it turned out, they are from Tennessee, too, (Knoxville) and play original swingy country/jazz songs. Very cool. I traded for their CD, which we're going to listen to in the van on the way to the gig today.

Last night we played at the Bull Run Restaurant. This place, which reminded me strongly of Penn Alps in Maryland, had crazy good food. I ate so much. Salad with greens, apples, roasted butternut squash, and a maple balsamic vinegarette. Ravioli stuffed with cheese and peppers over a butternut squash puree. (Butternut squash seems to be a running theme this weekend. Hmmm.) I was still full five hours afterwards. The building was built in 1740, which makes it one of the oldest places I've ever played, and the crowd was wonderful. One of my mom's old school mates from Clarkesville came, Jane Thompson. And I sold two whole CDs. I love it when that happens.

A couple of times this weekend I've had a sweaty-finger problem. I'll be playing a song, usually my banjo tune in the set, "Leroy and Liza," and I realize that my thumbpick is working its way down my thumb. I'm playing my last break thinking, "Please don't come off before the last note, please don't come off before the last note!" Luck was with me and it stayed on, but it was nerve wracking.

Well, gotta dash. We're loading the van to head to Harrisburg to play at the Stage on Herr tonight. See you there!

Casey Henry

Casey Henry

Yesterday: last show of the tour. Cool old Vaudeville theater with a surprising amount of space in the dressing rooms. I had the BEST surprise. I knew that my cousin who lives here in Pittsburgh and her boyfriend were coming to the show. She came when we were soundchecking and we went to eat Greek food (the owner of the restaurant was Jackie O’s personal chef on her yacht). I knew that my cousin and his girlfriend who live about an hour away were coming. But when I walked into the lobby at intermission and saw two of my mom’s cousins who live in Georgia, I was bowled over. Butch Martin had already seen the show once in Atlanta and still wanted to see it again (that’s a good sign, right?).

It was a really good show and really good crowd last night. For the first time on the entire tour, we had trouble with our sign. We’ve been doing a text-in promotion, so we have the phone number on a big sign. Every show after we show it to the audience, Robin props it up in front of the monitor speakers on the stage. Last night for some reason, it would not stay propped. It actually slid off the front of the stage! On his third try it stayed, earning a nice hand from the audience!

The sweet Uncle Earl G’earls gave us a bottle of wine and made us this card:

paperplate

We’ll miss you, too!! I’ll miss Paula singing baritone at my left shoulder during the finale songs. I’ll miss the theme songs. I’ll miss the jokes. I’ll miss hearing “Shiny Penny” and “Crayola” every day. I wish I had gotten a banjo lesson from Paula.

Here’s what I won’t miss: having to load the van every morning. Hotel breakfasts every morning. Riding in the van every single day. Having to wear the same clothes over and over and over.

Another thing I’ll miss is doing the pattycake on “Crayola.” Here’s Rachel and Sierra, trying to work up their verse, backstage in Hamilton, OH.

Rachel Johnson and Sierra Hull

Rachel Johnson and Sierra Hull

Rachel Johnson and Sierra Hull

Rachel Johnson and Sierra Hull

And I’ll miss everyone. I hope we get to do another tour together sometime!

everyone

Casey Henry

Casey Henry

This is gonna be a speed-blog because I'm running late and we're about to load the van to drive 4 1/2 hours to our LAST GIG OF THE TOUR!! We were all a bit disappointed yesterday when we realized what a long drive it was. Originally the tour book (our itenerary) had said it was only 110 miles. Alas, it's 293 miles. Bummer. Here's a concise view of our tour, courtesy of Uncle Earl: tour map.

First I have to say to my Dad:  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! I'll call you later!

There are many things that we'll miss when this tour is over. Loading the van in the morning is not one of them. Inevitably we're always waiting on someone or other. So a couple days ago I took some waiting pictures:

Robin Davis. Waiting.

Robin Davis. Waiting.

Jeremy Darrow. Waiting. (In his snazzy new Uncle Earl hat. He helped them load their van--he got a hat.)

Jeremy Darrow. Waiting. (In his snazzy new Uncle Earl hat. He helped them load their van--he got a hat.)

Casey Henry. Waiting.

Casey Henry. Waiting.

We will miss getting to hang out with such great musicians and amusing people every day.

Here's the link to my third tour post over on the Bluegrass Blog.

Gotta run. See y'all in Pittsburgh tonight I hope! (I mean, we'll definitely be there, I just hope that you will, too.)

Casey Henry

Casey Henry

Our band did a school outreach yesterday afternoon at St. John’s Lutheran School. The entire school was in attendence, a couple hundred K-8th graders. The littler kids were totally into it, clapping to almost every song, though not at all in time (it sounded like heavy rain pounding on a roof), but the eighth graders in the back row were more aloof, watching politely but completely undemonstrative.

It’s a completely different experience playing for children than for adults. I like to study the kids and pick out who looks the most like me at that age. She’d definitely be obeying all the rules, sitting politely, paying attention, long brown hair, headband or ponytail, braces.

We had to adjust our material some, on account of all the singing about alcohol, suicide, and sex that we usually do. J We did “Bound to Ride,” and Buddy introduced it with a long spiel about crackers (the food, not the people). The next song was Robin singing “Nine Pound Hammer.” As he was singing the verse that goes, “It’s a long way to Harlan, it’s a long way to Hazard, just to get a little brew…” he suddenly realized he was singing about moonshine and improvised on the fly: “It’s a long way to Harlan, it’s a long way to Hazard, just to get a pile of crackers…” The band cracked up, of course, and the school’s staff was none the wiser. The kids didn’t care.

Our show tonight had a pretty good crowd, but they were a little too polite. We like the ones who will hoot and holler. Oh. Wait. I can hear them now. They’re hooting and hollering for Uncle Earl. It was just us. Okay then. Never mind….

The women of the American Revival Tour getting ready to sing the Crayola song.

The women of the American Revival Tour getting ready to sing the Crayola song.

Anyway. Uncle Earl does one of Kristin Andreassen’s songs, “Crayola Doesn’t Make A Color For Your Eyes.” I’m not sure if I’ve really written anything about it until now, but it is a totally awesome song. It won some kind of songwriting award, but it’s completely charming and the last line of the chorus is “Crayola doesn’t make a color to draw my love.” Their arrangement includes a hand clap/slap pattycake thing all the way through. They sing and clap simultaneously and I didn’t fully appreciate how hard that is until last night.

The G’Earls wanted to get all the women on the tour involved and on stage at the same time, so Rachel and Sierra learned a verse to sing while they clapped, and Brandi and I were hand jive partners. To keep the pattern going through the entire song takes a balance of concentration and not-thinking-about-it that I have not achieved yet. Maybe by tonight, or tomorrow.

We just have two more shows left. Two! Long drive today—six hours—and a show tonight in Hamilton, Ohio. We need to make sure to get a group picture before we all go our separate ways.