Menomonie to Chicago

CGT at Swallow Hill in Denver. Photo by Brian Berger

10:35am. Bert, Hideyo, Tyler and I are traveling down I-94 in Wisconsin from Menomonie to Chicago. Today is the final day of this month long tour, and what a great tour it has been. We did not have one “bad” gig, and played in some really, really great venues. I was a bit concerned that we’d have problems with getting people to come to shows with the bad economy, and there were a couple places that we had slightly less people, but there were many shows where we had more people! I’m actually sad to see the tour end, but will be happy to have a break before we do our mini European tour beginning the end of April.



In the photo is CGT with Brian Berger and his wife at Swallow Hill in Denver. Brian was my band mate in my very first band when I was 15 years old attending Bountiful High School in Utah. The band was called Black Diamond with Brian Berger on guitar, Jerry Rose on guitar, Scott Sharp on keyboards and vocals, Jeff Bradford on keyboards and vocals, Brett Bradford on drums, and I played bass guitar. I wanted to play guitar in the band, but they only needed a bass player, so I borrowed my brother’s bass guitar and joined the band. Our first performance was at a Mormon “Road Show” and we played a song called “Driver’s Seat”. One of the main things that I remember about that concert is that the bass amplifier I was using was not grounded electrically, and just before we were going to play, I touched a metal railing by the stage, and received a huge shock! Fortunately I was okay and able to do the performance. Black Diamond practiced in Scott Sharp’s basement and developed an repertoire of the current top 40 hits. During the summer, we played every Saturday at the local amusement park called Lagoon, and during the school year we got many gigs playing for high school and church dances. I was amazed to be 15 years old and earning money playing in a rock band! The band was only together for about 1 year, as the guys who graduated from high school moved away for college. After Black Diamond broke up, the drummer Brett and I were still in high school and we formed a new band called Matrix and we enlisted various friends of ours to play shows at the high school assemblies, playing Led Zeppelin, Rush, AC/DC, Journey, April Wine, Foreigner and other rock band hits from the 80’s.

Lincoln, Des Moines, and Minneapolis

View from my hotel room in downtown Minneapolis

Minneapolis Minesota

11:26am. This morning I got out of bed and did some yoga in my hotel room. After a little stretching, I noticed a magazine on the desk in my room listing Minneapolis’ best restaurants and opened the page to the listings and saw best breakfast “Hell’s Kitchen”. I looked out the window and saw Hell’s Kitchen just down the street. I walked over and there was a long line of people waiting to get in. Since I was by myself, I bypassed the long line and was seated in the pub area and within a few minutes I had “Huevos Rancheros of the gods” in front of me. Excellent!

The show last night at the Cedar Culture Center here in Minneapolis was excellent. We had more people in the audience than we’ve ever had before at this venue. The staff at this venue is mostly volunteers, very much like Swallow Hill in Denver and The Ark in Ann Arbor, and everyone seemed happy to be there, and they did a great job of taking care of us, and helped make it a great show.

On Thursday night we played a very interesting show in Des Moines Iowa. Our promoter/friend Michael went all out on the set up of this event with a huge sound and lighting system. Michael’s wife Julie is a dance instructor at the Catalyst Arts Academy and she had choreographed a dance for the students for two CGT songs, which was great and really added a fun dynamic to the show.

Wednesday night was at the beautifully restored Rococo Theater in Lincoln. This venue is the perfect sort of venue for the CGT. And although the turn out was on the lighter side, I really enjoyed playing in this theater. Our friend Steve did a very good job of helping promote the show and most of the people in the audience were there because of his promotional efforts. Thanks Steve! It was Bert’s birthday, and Steve’s wife made a birthday cake for Bert and his daughter Kealey delivered the cake, with candles lit, to the stage at the end of the show.

Colorado to Nebraska

Today is Bert's Birthday!

See Bert climb the wall like the little statue guys in the hotel lobby in Denver.

See Bert looking at the fake fruit. Happy Birthday Bert!

Thousands of birds on our drive from Denver to Lincoln

Lots of corn fields

more corn fields

And more corn fields!!!

Finally we arrived in Lincoln. And had dinner at a cool place called Yia Yia's.

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Colorado

View from my hotel room in Denver. A light dusting of snow this morning.


Tyler and the CGT van on I-70 in the Rocky mountains


Rocky Mountains from the van.

8:21am. Bert and I are having breakfast with Bill Janssen this morning, long time CGT friend and one of the best musicians I have ever had the opportunity to play music with. Bill is heavily featured on CGT’s Pathways and Rock’s the West Cds. After breakfast we will drive from Denver to Lincoln NB.

The concert at Swallow Hill in Denver on Saturday Night was superb! And excellent acoustic music venue with a great sound system and the audience was spectacular. The venue is a converted church and the acoustics and feel of the room are in comparison with our other favorite venues such as The Ark in Ann Arbor Michigan. We sold more live Cds than any other show on this tour.

Sunday night was at Steve’s Guitars, which is a funky little guitar shop in the mountain town of Carbondale Colorado. It is a very tiny performance space, which was pleasantly filled up with locals, a couple guys from NYC, and some friends of mine from Utah. We did a workshop before the concert and did some circulating and thraking with the workshop attendees, which including Steve the owner of the shop. Steve is one of the nicest guys we’ve met and I enjoyed playing in his little shop.


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Albuquerque and Santa Fe

Near the center of Santa Fe. The oldest Church in the United States.  The mission was built by Tlaxcalan Indians from Mexico in the early 1600's, under the direction of Fray Alonso de Beavides. 

2:08pm. It is snowing hard right now as we drive from Santa Fe New Mexico to Denver. The drive through Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado is really beautiful. The drive today is 400 miles and we play a concert tonight in Denver, and we have about 40 miles left to go.

Last night the concert was at the beautiful James Little Theater in Santa Fe. Our friend Tomas did a good job of promoting the show, but Santa Fe remains a mystery to me on how to consistently get good sized audiences there. CGT has played several great shows in Santa Fe in the past, one of them on my list of all time favorite gigs at the Santuario de Guadalupe, which is an old historic church in the downtown area. We had a small yet enthusiastic audience at the show last night. Perhaps Santa Fe is one of the places that has been hit hard by the recession? As opposed to Dallas, where we saw no signs of recession at all, at least not from our viewpoint. In fact we had more people at our show than we did the last time we played there. So it is interesting to note the differences in the places we visit.

On Thursday night we had a packed house at Cooperage in Albuquerque. When we drove up to the venue, we were surprised to find out that Cooperage is actually steak and prime rib restaurant, which also has a large back room where they hold concerts. It was a very unusual setting for a concert, but it turned out great with a very attentive appreciative crowd at the steakhouse.

Artesia New Mexico and Carlsbad Caverns

Last night we played a concert in Artesia New Mexico. Artesia is an Oil Town in Southeast New Mexico. The concert was in a beautiful brand new performing arts center. The thing that made this concert special were the people that were at the show, many of who had never heard about the California Guitar Trio.

During the day on Tuesday, we drove to the nearby Carlsbad Caverns, the largest known caves in the Western Hemisphere. Amazing. We didn't have a lot of time, so instead of hiking miles through the caves, we just rode the elevator down 750 feet below the surface, arriving at the Great Room, which was a strange experience. Here are a few photos I took:

On Monday, we drove through Roswell New Mexico, home to many intergalactic aliens:

Brian and Tyler at Tap Werks in Oklahoma City on Sunday. The photo behind them is "The Lads of the Village, 1934, Bradford Abbas Dorset" which is very near Cranborne Dorset where we lived at the Red Lion House with Robert Fripp.

The Taps at Tap Werks in Oklahoma City.

More photos from Dallas: Concert photos by Bill Ellison

Dallas

Excellent show last night in Dallas. The Granada is a superb venue, the audience and staff are really great there. 

After the show, the CD duplicator gave us some trouble last night and refused to work...a very patient group of people waited and waited for their live cds while Tyler rebooted the duplicator over and over trying to get it to work. Finally, after about 30 minutes of waiting, I made an announcement offering a refund or the option to let us send the live CDs, and most people accepted the option to allow us to send them the CDs and they left the theater with the empty CD sleeves. Right after they all walked out the door, the CD duplicator decided to start working again! So, the good news is we have copies of the show, and we will arrange to have them sent out to everyone who purchased them as soon as possible. Thank you!