The Second Album, Part 2: Digression

Our recording session for Friday got cancelled. We were scheduled from 8 p.m to 4 a.m., and John Sherrod, our producer from Murfreesboro, TN called and told us the engineer was going to be working early the next morning, and couldn’t do it. It so happened that our family was in from WV that weekend, so it actually worked out better for us too.

So instead of working on our recording that Friday, we headed toward Huntsville, AL on Saturday at around noon, where we were booked to play at the Huntsville Big Spring Jam alongside acts like Will Hoge, KC & The Sunshine Band, Gin Blossoms, Joan Jett, and Sister Hazel.

We had a strange theme running through the whole trip of meeting some of the nicest people we’ve ever met. First, as we were pulling out of Nashville, we stopped at a Taco Bell for lunch and met an extremely outgoing guy named C.J. at the counter. He can only be described as “jolly” – he was the Santa Claus of Taco Bell.

When we got there we decided to go see Saturday night’s
concerts...

Our recording session for Friday got cancelled. We were scheduled from 8 p.m to 4 a.m., and John Sherrod, our producer from Murfreesboro, TN called and told us the engineer was going to be working early the next morning, and couldn’t do it. It so happened that our family was in from WV that weekend, so it actually worked out better for us too.

So instead of working on our recording that Friday, we headed toward Huntsville, AL on Saturday at around noon, where we were booked to play at the Huntsville Big Spring Jam alongside acts like Will Hoge, KC & The Sunshine Band, Gin Blossoms, Joan Jett, and Sister Hazel.

We had a strange theme running through the whole trip of meeting some of the nicest people we’ve ever met. First, as we were pulling out of Nashville, we stopped at a Taco Bell for lunch and met an extremely outgoing guy named C.J. at the counter. He can only be described as “jolly” – he was the Santa Claus of Taco Bell.

When we got there we decided to go see Saturday night’s concerts (we performed on Sunday so we didn’t get passes for the day before). As we were waiting for Doretta, our manager, to get cash from the ATM to buy the passes, 2 separate people walked up and handed us over a hundred dollars worth of tickets. So basically everybody in our
party got in for free. There were a couple of other instances, as well, but we all noticed how out of the ordinary it was.

It ended up that it was a good thing we didn’t pay for tickets, because a huge thunderstorm rolled in and most of the concerts got cancelled, but I felt kind of sorry for everyone that did pay.

On Sunday, we were scheduled to play on the Corr Wireless Stage at 2:30 p.m., so we got up early and headed back out to the park at around 12:30 p.m. We pulled into 2 band entrances before finding the right one. I think we were feeling kind of small with our little minivan next to the huge tour busses all over the place, for artists
like Bo Bice, Sister Hazel, John Anderson, Tracy Lawrence, etc. But we loaded out our gear and waited while KC & The Sunshine Band did their sound check, and then took the stage for ours.

First of all, KC’s sound guy was annoying and made them run over on time, so we ended up starting our sound check late. All the stage sound guys were tired of him, too. There were some technical sound problems from the outset as well, including wireless gear with interference, cables not working, and sound guys forgetting to turn on the right channels. But eventually we were able to get everything worked out and got set up to do our show.

We played a short 30 minute set with songs like Fine, Misled, Solid, Clouds, and Unfaithful. We had so many technical problems stressing us out at the beginning, it was really hard to stay calm and loose, so it always leaves me wondering about a show like this one afterwards. But the crowd seemed into it, and we even had security
guards and EMT volunteers from backstage complimenting us on the show afterward in the musician’s lounge area. So I think it must have turned out well despite the confusion.

We hung around the festival afterwards and thanks to our band privileges we got some good seats at a few of the other concerts that night as well. By the time we got home around midnight we were all completely exhausted and not quite feeling ready to start the new week early the next morning…