Sunday, October 19, 2003

Sun 19 Oct: Alexandria VA - The Birchmere Back at the Birchmere in Alexandria again. Not much happening around the Birchmere, especially not on a Sunday... This is one of those gigs where you feel like a hostage, because there is nowhere to go...like at Stockton College in New Jersey yesterday...At least the Birchmere has food and snacks waiting for us! Stockton forgot to bring food to the hospitality room and the person responsible for reading the contract wasn't there. We had to order some greasy pizza... Yeah, I write a lot about food...but you have to imagine that we have been on the road for five weeks now and that means five weeks of not being able to cook...take the other day in Annapolis as an example: I thought the food at the Rams Head was awful, so I went to a little restaurant called Luna Blu across the street hoping to find a good Italian meal: wrong! I would like to think that I cook better than that but in the end you gotta eat something... One luxury I would love to be able to afford is to have a catering truck follow us around...great fresh food every day!! Wow, what a concept. Have to sell more CDs...have to sell more CDs... The show at the Birchmere was fun, the house was sold out and the audience is always fantastic here. Again no CD sales as the house wanted to take too much. 12:05:56 PM    comment []; Colors I have grown a goatee on this tour, and my beard is multi-colored now. I have some dark hairs, some white hairs and some red hair. My mother's uncle was said to have black hair and a very red beard. It amazes me that some guys keep a certain kind of beard all of their lives, in fact one friend of mine wore the same beard in his forties that he had when he was a teenager. No, my philosophy on hair and beard is that they are accessories, to be changed on a whim, to be experimented with, to be messed with...it's just hair after all and grows back. I had long hair through 1993, when I shaved it in Singapore, then I grew my hair again through 1997, when I shaved it again... 12:05:48 PM    comment []; Fri 16 Oct: Annapolis MD - Rams Head It really feels like Fall now. I walk around town for a while in the early afternoon. I can report that the Ben Jerry's store on Main Street keeps their ice cream at the perfect temperature for maximum enjoyment! When we come out for our second set I start checking my guitar's tuning as a man walks up and stands right in front of me. That means since the stage is tiny he could basically reach out and grab my guitar. I look up and he says: What kind of guitar is that? For a moment I am dumbfounded. I can't hear clearly as I am wearing my in-ear monitors and I have had plenty of aggressive drunk people get in my face before. What kind of guitar? Like acoustic guitar, nylon string guitar, Flamenco guitar? What the hell are you doing here, buddy? Would I interrupt you if you were on a phone call? No. Would I interrupt you if you were talking to somebody? No. Did you wander into the wrong place, looking for drinks? Can't you wait until after the show? Can't you see that I am trying to do something here, that I am trying to concentrate. Do you want to grab the guitar? What if it gets damaged - I don't have my second Lester DeVoe guitar yet...I try to collect my thoughts and tell him that he has a choice of going back to his table, in which case I will start playing or he can continue to stand right in front of me, and in front of the people sitting at the first table, in which case I will go back to the dressing room and there will be no second set. He stands there and thinks about that for a few seconds and finally mutters, I guess I'll go back to my table then...Note to self: there is definitely more alcohol being consumed in a club on a Friday evening than on a Thursday evening. Duh!! 12:05:05 PM    comment [];

© Copyright 2003 Ottmar Liebert. Last update: 11/1/03; 9:39:25 AM.