FROM THE ROAD

Van Love

Wednesday, February 03, 2010 at 12:00:00 AM

 Hello friends,

Bearfoot's at it again!  We've been gettin' after it in a big way for the last month.  After taking some much needed time off over the holidays, our little traveling group of minstrels has been busy traveling the country in our new band van! We're having a Name the Bearfoot Band Van Contest startingFeb. 5th and ending on the 25th, so check out below for more details! The winner will get two free tickets to a show, or two free CDs, or two free T-shirts, and mention on all our social network sites! 

Wow!  None of us ever had any idea what an improvement in quality of life on the road we'd be experiencing just by having a little more leg room.  Before, our typical travel mode was a rented Chrysler Town and Country mini van with JUST enough room to squeeze our instruments, luggage, and bodies into.  Now we get to trade off with three of us having a whole bench seat to ourselves, and two people up front.  MUCH nicer - trust me!

It is in this luxurious new configuration that we have been driving around in for the last solid month.  We've gone from our homebase of Nashville (more or less), to New York City, and on over through the Midwest.  In the Midwest we got visit the Windy City where we played at this amazing venue called The Old Time School of Folk and opened for the incredible band, Solas.

After a memorable night of jamming with the Solas crew, we drove through a nasty little blizzard to Cedar Rapids, IA. and were rewarded with a beautiful venue, and hardy crowd who also braved the weather to see us.  Continuing with our "blizzard" run, we drove all night into Minneapolis that night where some of us found a nice yoga studio to stretch out in, while others just zenned out and prepared for the gig at the Cedar Theater.

With little sleep that night, we boogied to the airport, said goodbye to The Van, and flew to the Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow Scottland for a 36 hour stay.  Met and played with some amazing people, and turned right back around and headed to North Carolina for a few nearly snowed out gigs.  After playing a mini-festival in Raleigh with Tony Rice and the legendary Kris Kristofferson, we dropped off the rented mini van, got into another plane, and flew back to Minneapolis to pick up our REAL van and drive it all the way to Portland, OR. That was a twenty nine hour run, straight through. Mike and I drove through the night, while the girls slept, but they pulled through with the daytime driving. We're playing tonight with Caleb Klauder's band at the Mississippi Studios.  It's gonna be SO fun!  Yeeeeeeeehaaaaa!

That pretty well sums up the FIRST half of this two-month tour.  Plenty more action yet to come, and we'll be posting again real soon, so stay tuned...  Peace out for now everybody!

Your friendly Mando player,

Jason

RECENT POSTS