So we have just driven 260 miles last night after the gig in Tulsa OK and we are all pretty tired. We are driving from Kansas City to Cedar Rapids, which is another 350 miles for a gig tonight. I do not want to talk to anyone who says you have the life of Reilly!
Well we did have a great few days up in Portland ME. We were there for 3 days and we were treated so well by the people running the gig. We played in a club called the Empire Dine and Grill and on our night off we went to see a bluegrass band, with a great mandolin player called Jo Walsh who is a lovely singer. We then met John Cooper who is a violin maker or - new word for Karan - a Luthier - good one huh!
And he is a tremendously kind man and not only did he show us around but he also let us use his studio to practice and his friend Ed Pearlman lent us a keyboard for the gig and the practice. To be honest I was thinking that the studio would be a little shack but it is a really lovely building with loads of rooms for rehearsals. They also make guitars so there is a whole cottage industry going on up there. We went to a great Mexican restaurant as well and then the lads went out again. They are very hardy altogether.
Danger Kate who is our wonderful cello player aka Kate Ellis is the hardiest of them all. She floats around this world as a beautiful-cello-goddess-type but really she has a hardened criminal mind and seems to be really able to stick the pace.
The gig was great in Portland and the crowd were up for a good night. This youngfellow called Conor Quinn told me he could sing, well his Dad did really and so I asked him up to sing and he was great, which was a relief! It was the first time he had ever sung in front of a mic.
Anyway I did get sick in Portland and was a bit whacked out because I didn’t read the instructions on the cover. So I took 2 tablets every 3 or 4 hours and then realised you are only supposed to take 2 every 8 hours so I was a tad mental in Tulsa and slept nearly all day on the planes.
The people in Tulsa were really good crack and the people organizing the gig especially Shirley were particularly nice considering how mental my head was.  My Obama song  didn’t go down so well. Guess it’s not a blue state. Two people up the front left when I said the president was fantastic. Honestly people get a life!
Anyway what else… well Ross our brilliant guitar player is on a bit of a mission to see the real America. I know what he means in that when you drive just on the highway all the time you don’t get to chat to people so we’ve been stopping in out of the way places and meeting out of the way people. One waitress up in Vermont told us all about these red cranberry shoes that she really wanted to buy - they were 250 dollars and her husband told her they were too dear, which I said wasn’t very fair, even though I did think it was a lot! Anyway in the heel of the hunt the story involved your woman dancing around the restaurant, with a song and in the end she got the shoes on sale for 90 dollars. I like the Hollywood ending.
Today’s restaurant was in St Charles a few miles from where John Wayne was born and it was their opening day. Also just so as ye know, John Wayne’s mother was from Lewis in Scotland (Ross's information). The woman running the show was a character and made us eat hillbilly pie. When we asked what that was she said anyone south of the 92! And she roared laughing. Does this make sense to ye?  They were having a few teething problems as the taco meat hadn't thawed out yet.
It reminded me of another time I was in Wisconsin and we stopped for something to eat and your man the waiter asked us what we’d like and we said well what do you have. Then he said well we have "Friendship soup" and we asked what was that like and he said "Well it ain’t pretty but folks around here sure like it!"
We are nearly in Cedar Rapids so newly made IT warrior woman is signing off.