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Category Archives: Enjoy Yourself 2011

Show 12 – San Antonio, TX

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Oh, Cowboys Dancehall.  At one point during the day I remarked, “Hey, I’ve never done a show here before.”  To which the confused reply,”..and you work in country music?” quickly came flying back.  Yes to the second, and no I had not until this past Friday night.  My posts have been a tad bit tardy as of late.  Combining them all, and posting multiple times once I get home, instead of posting the day after.

For those who have not been.  Cowboys is another Texas joint with live bullriding a weirdly shaped stage, massive dance floors both upstairs and down, and nothing that even remotely resembles an ideal load-in or out situation.  But the fun in between is worth all the hassle, supposedly.  If there had been an easier way to get gear out of the building while the club was open for another two hours after the show, I’d have been the happiest camper you’ve ever seen.  Because everything else about the show was great.

For one, the club sold more pre-sale tickets than ever before.  And, two, shoved more asses in inappropriately tiny shorts into the building than ever before.  The crowd sang almost every word as loud as they could, cheered at all the moments you would want them too, and then just shrieked between songs.  Sweaty, drinking, dancing, singing along, and loving life.  That’s what you wanna see from a crowd, especially packed into this place.

That’s my only beef with the whole night though.  There’s got to be a better way to get loaded out, geez.

and go for pictures:

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Show 6 – Ruston, LA

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Show 6 – Ruston, LA

That’s right, Rabb’s Steakhouse.  It’s a concert venue, and a steakhouse, and a drive-thru daquiri mart.  Kind of like a lawn mower repair / tax service place I had near my home growing up.  It’s a one stop party shop of fun.  This night was just Billy, so the band was able to do a full set.  And I don’t think they could have fit another body in the place:

It was the third show of the year we have done with Brantley Gilbert as support on the show.  And I met Tyler Bryant for the first time.  If you catch a Jeff Beck show this year, he will likely be playing before, and will absolutely kill it.

Like I said, things were packed, the band was on a “not so ideal” stage (size-wise).  But that didn’t really affect the vibe of everything.  All-in-all, a killer show.  I think everyone in attendance had a great time.  I’ll always go work a show in Louisiana:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a fun break to do a longer set.  In Little Rock tonight for show 6 of the Goin Coastal 2011 Tour with Kenny Chesney and Uncle Kracker….

- mt

Bus stock

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Heading out for the first time this year. Early bus call times kinda stink. But grocery shopping can be fun.

Kroger is a lot more crowded at 6 pm than it is at midnight.

One Day, Two Pictures

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It took a bit longer than anticipated to get everything completely in running order.  But, we finally finished patching, almost every order has come in, and we jumped from a good starting spot.  One more day, and everyone should have the time-off rust shaken and ready to do our first shows of the year.

Good friend Craig Campbell (find him here: http://www.craigcampbell.tv) was rehearsing and auditioning keyboard players in the next room.  So it was good to see all of them, meet their new FOH guy, etc.  Overall, good feeling about the day when we reached a point where we wrapped for the night.

Here’s a shot of the guys working on a song from the latest record, new to the show for 2011:

The Band rehearsing a new song

Nathan is our new guitar  & backline tech.  After all kinds of effort to make things really nice, a pedal crapped out on us at the last minute.  He’s a little non-plussed to have things like this rearing up at the last minute.  But such is life with electronics.

it only works if the power plug is halfway in…awesome!

Thus ends the night after a couple little computer updates, and putting this blog to bed for the evening.  Up and at ‘em tomorrow for Tobias Tuesday (if you were ever a fan of Arrested Development).  And I’m not referring to the band.  Tampa and Houston can’t come fast enough…I think.

MT

 

Rehearsals approaching

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So tomorrow morning we finally load in for two days of band rehearsals.  It will be nice to actually feel like a show may happen soon.  I’m sure things will be a bit different this year, but I think everyone is excited to get started.  Weird to set up one rig, and then come back next week to set up an entirely different one.  But nonetheless, I’m pumped.

No pictures or video for this post, but I’ll try and snap a few good ones tomorrow and Tuesday.

 

Almost time to hit the road…

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So the week is coming to a close, and next week is band rehearsals.  Just got emailed some pictures of my new production box.  Pretty stoked about it.  Thanks to Zito for the design inspiration (or carbon copy), and many thanks to Jed X at JXL for building this.  Enjoy a couple pictures:

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