Last night was a great gig! We had some folks from The Chieftains sit-in with us during the first set, and that was cool but I thought that second set raged!
It was a rainy day in Philadelphia but I walked to a coffee shop anyway and skyped with Cheryl for a bit. South street is a pretty cool neighborhood.
Sound check was very minimal with most of the time spent doing jamming exercises. The jamming exercises are awesome. They really get the band playing like a band and they get everyone’s ears opened up.
Craig and I then went out to dinner with my friends Shawn and Erin and their friend Ron at a really great Thai restaurant, Tamarind. Craig and Ron got fish that still had eyes. Um… yum?
When I got back to the club the members of the Chieftains were there and we ran over the tunes they were sitting in on.
The fiddle player that sat in (I can’t remember any of their names except Jeff, the guitarist) was excellent. We did some bluegrass and we did Mike’s song Voices and she fit right in over all of it. They had three tap dancers that came out at various points. It was dangerous out there! They were high kicking and covering a lot of ground and I spent a lot of time trying to stay out of the way!
Then for Walls Of Time I let Jeff use my guitar while he sang with Mike and I went out front for a bit to check it out. A rare opportunity!
When I came back on my guitar cable was shot. Casualty of dancers maybe? Anyway Rachel replaced my cable and I was good to go.
After all the fun distractions of the first set the band came out for second set firing on all cylinders. The jams were excellent and somewhere in there we played Jones again and it raged.
The last song of the set was Suskind Hotel and the ending jam was so so so good that I convinced Mike that when we did the encore we should start the Suskind jam again from where we left off. Which we did. It was great fun!
Afterward Shawn, Erin and Ron came to the bus with me and Shawn brought some excellent wine, of course.
All in all it was a great night.
Oh, and thanks to Pete for bringing and arranging the sit-ins to happen!
Scott's Blog 
hey scott! you guys most definitely killed it second set. i loved the bubbles at your climaxes. your solos were so colorful. I was lucky to be right in front of you dancing like a maniac. it seems like you had a wonderful time. thanks for making the evening super enjoyable, your presence on stage was so much fun 🙂
Scott, you’re absolutely right. The TLA “Jones” was absolutely rocking. Very smooth and funky. Could be my favorite part of the show*. Lucky enough I left the floor and caught some of it on video from the balcony. Liggy’s lights are cool too. Here’s a link:
http://bit.ly/JonesTLA
And here’s a quick little snapshot of The Chieftain’s stepdancers…stepping all over! The high-kicks she was doing went over your head!! I don’t think you look too panic’d. I just wish I got the part where you got your Languedoc back and played the ssssmokin guitar part after…
http://bit.ly/Chieftains