Three Oaks

I guess tonight was the “real” opening night…..in-stores and cocktail parties don’t really count.  

We arrived back in Toronto around ten o’clock on Friday night and had to be at our studio at 6:45am the next day to load our gear out for an 8:30am departure: a four hour drive to Lexington (with a border crossing), two new crew guys to show the ropes, and two shows. It was a very long day. To add a little bit of extra stress, Jeff is not with us because of a family emergency (we hope that he’ll join us in a few days).  Luckily Aaron Goldstein, who is playing pedal steel with Lee Harvey Osmond, was planning to sit in with us, so soundcheck was dedicated to getting Aaron integrated into the sound of the band.

This is, not surprisingly, our first time in Lexington. A very quaint little town located on the shore of Lake Huron (my favourite of the Great Lakes).  A nicely renovated, quirky little theater (The Lexington Music Theater) and a well engaged audience for both shows. The only hic-up in the night was an over worked promoter who failed to understand that, yes, we like our dinner hot and serving it before we go on stage for the first show so that we can eat it 90 minutes later, just doesn’t work.  Sometimes you can role with that type of thing, but when you have had the type of schedule that we have had for the past few days, all you really want is a semi-decent, relatively hot meal….a congealed quiche and stone cold grilled sandwich just doesn’t cut it. But, most importantly we had a pretty decent opening night on stage.

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Another new town tonight, Three Oaks.  I’m not quite sure where we are in the state, but I know it is very close to the Indiana border and Lake Michigan: a very weird little town with an obvious critical mass of like-minded residents, who have carved out this little artsy haven in the middle of nowhere Michigan.  Some interesting shops on Main Street and the venue was in the old featherbone factory that is slowly finding a new life through creative renovations. By the way, if you are wondering what a feather bone is, it has something to do with the spine of a turkey feather used to make corsets back at the turn of the last century. It was a revolutionary design that apparently made the family that owned the factory, the richest family in Michigan at that time.  In any case it is a beautiful old building and a very unique venue. We were treated royally tonight. A home cooked meal of barbeque steak, fresh vegetables, various pies….amazing.

 We had a very good night. It’s a lot of fun playing with a pedal steel again. It’s been over fifteen years since we had one on stage with us.