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.