1/26/09: Week Wrap-Up

Hey everyone,

Just to recap on the week so far... it has been a busy one, as I'm sure it has been for all of you as well.

We left on the morning of the 21st for Evansville, Indiana. We had a show that evening opening up for Jamey Johnson at the Woody's bar. The show was sold out with wall-to-wall people. As we've come to expect at this point in the journey, there is not going to be a lot of people that are familiar with my music unless they have heard me on the radio, so the 45 to 75 minutes were given each and every night is an opportunity for us to hopefully win over some more fans.

So far, I'd have to say its been going very well and the people at our shows have had nothing but good comments for the band and myself. I know there is probably a lot of you that haven't had the chance to see one of our shows yet, but hopefully our tour dates will bring us your way. The next place that our bus took us was to Lexington, KY where we played a show at Cadillac Ranch. We had an awesome show there. You know Lexington was the first stop I made months and months ago on my radio tour. Its gone by so fast and Its hard to imagine all that I've been able to accomplish since then. It was good to see my friend Mark Grantin from the radio station. When I passed through there that first day of the radio tour and played in the board room, Mark had become an instant supporter towards my music and shortly there after added my first single "Crazy Days." Since then, he has been on board and very supportive... so thank you Mark!

Getting back to the day of the show... That evening, Mark, myself, and some of my team went to dinner at one of these restaurants where they cook the food in front of you. I'm never disappointed with the food, it's always great. Anyways while we were there we shared the table with a lady and her two daughters, one of which was celebrating her tenth birthday. Somehow, we started talking about cell phones and Emily the birthday girl said, I'm going to be getting a cell phone soon, and in an innocent manner she added that her phone is going to be a nicer phone than both her mom and dad's phone combined. Jeff Davis, my record label rep and one of the nicest dudes you'll ever meet, pulled out his iPhone and started showing it off to all three of them. You could see that they were very intrigued by the phone.

After paying the bill, we asked Mary Beth (the girl's mom) if they'd be interested in having a tour of our bus. They were shocked that we had even asked. They said sure and little Emily said this is the best birthday gift ever. This family is big country music fans and had heard my songs on the radio, so this was extra special for both them. They followed us back to the venue where the bus was parked out back and we gave them the grand tour of the inside of the bus. All three of them were like, WOW, this is incredible! We sat and chatted for a while and then I pulled out my guitar and played them a couple songs. First I played "What It Takes" which Emily was familiar with and then I followed it up with "Crazy Days" and she sang along to both. I loved our visit with them and hopefully I will get to see them all at future shows.

Our next stop took us to Grand Rapids, Michigan. I'm sure most of you don’t want to even hear the word snow or how cold it was, I thought I would mention it anyways. There was snow there and it was a little on the nippy side. I'd say my blood has kind of thickened since I had just been home at Christmas because the cold didn't really bother me at all. This was our second show with Jamey Johnson. A band called Union Guns was the first act up… then myself and then Jamey closed the evening. There were probably from what I saw and from what I was told 900 people in the club. They were a rowdy crowd that came to have a good time. I met up with the radio DJs there and we chatted for a few minutes before my meet and greet. We played a 45-minute set and the audience was really into what we were doing. Our cover tunes of Justin Timberlake and Coldplay always seem to cause a stir of interest and in most cases are the topics of conversation from the people that come up to meet me afterwards.

After the show, and after we got done loading up all the gear we hit the road running for Nashville. There were a few of us including myself that stayed up till 4 in the morning on the bus ride back just blaring music through the speakers. When I get in that music-playing mode, I play everything from Toto to Journey and some Boston. I also played some of the new songs that I've been working on for the band. Music for me just soothes the soul. Isn't it amazing how it does that. We arrived back into Nashville this morning at around 10 a.m. and I've had the rest of the day to myself to get some things done including typing this journal up for y'all. I hope your all having a great night and thank you for the continued support. God Bless!

ag)