Departing the lovely Hotel Emma, I recapped mentally on our great stay in Texas. The people have been great, the weather, hot and the food, stellar. And so it was, back in the vans and en route to San Antonio airport for the final time. We drove up to the FBO gate and as ever, [...]
live pics from Roger Van Der Laan Austin is a great city, it’s a simple fact. Apart from the musical influences, it is one of America’s fastest growing cities where prospects and standard of living are good. Austin is known as a ‘clean-air city’ for its stringent no-smoking ordinances that apply to all public places [...]
Sugar Land is known as an ‘edge’ city, set on the outskirts of Houston, the original Sugar plantations were consolidated into ‘Imperial Sugar’ in 1908 and the area remains the home to its headquarters. As we know, Sugar has certainly been used extensively in all commercial foodstuffs, none more so than here in the US. [...]
Chastain Park is an idyllic area situated near the Northern edge of Atlanta. The area was originally occupied by Creek Indians, near the floodplain known as Nancy Creek. Nowadays, it is the largest city park incorporating jogging paths, playgrounds, tennis courts, a golf course, swimming pool, horse park and of course the Chastain Park amphitheater. [...]
Returning to Nashville after 11 years was always going to be a shock as both Richard and Glenn, Nashville residents, said Mark and I wouldn’t recognise it. They were right to an extent but it’s still ‘Nashville’ but with heavier traffic and a vastly altered skyline. Our hotel is a new building called the Hutton [...]
We’ve been in Chicago now for almost a week so it feels nice that we’re finally playing the show here tonight. The now quite familiar Chicago theatre is another fabulous venue, one of the first theatres built in what is now theatre-land, Chicago. In keeping with the regime, the Peloton session was first up, then [...]
Boldly striding to the elevators, heading for the gym and the addiction that is Peloton, I ignore the usually unknown hunger sensation, preferring to wait until after the workout to eat. Danny is already on one of the bikes having been seduced by the charms of Ally Love and co. With bluetooth headsets we pedal [...]
There’s much more to this theatre than meets the eye, well I’ve always assumed this but today I learned a little more about the Orpheum. For starters, Bob Dylan owned it, for a period of 9 years before selling it in 1988 to the City of Minneapolis who renovated and reopened it in 1993. In [...]
Much the same as any other American city, its past is so often illustrious or even ignominious. The Kansas City Jazz scene in the 1930’s and ’40's is well documented as the City heralded the tradition from big bands to the Be-Bop influence. Artists like Count Basie with his well respected Bennie Moten band and [...]
It rained today. For the first time in ages, seemingly. We have lucked out with the weather is so many ways on this trip, avoiding storms on flights, avoiding bad weather on outdoor shows, often by one day. The sun seems to be following us and as I type this looking out across Lake Michigan [...]
