Yesterday afternoon I was feeling tired. This ol’ road was catching up to me. I was afraid that after the show I would not have the energy to write the blog so that YOU…. the most important people in this entire journey (outside of my brother Randy who I HAVE to remember needs four tickets to the Anaheim show!) can feel like you are out here WITH us, enjoying every Denny’s and  lumpy mattress. Then I had a revelation. I will write the blog about the show BEFORE the show. I mean, I kind of know how it’s gonna go, right? So here goes. Here is what happened tonight. If I end up being  wrong about anything I will suck it up and correct it before I go to bed.

1. The promoters told us the Sacramento Fire Marshall was on vacation in the Azores with his family and the venue was throwing its maximum capacity policy out the door. We had a standing room only audience of easily 5000 people who were jammed elbow to elbow, screaming from the first moment we hit the stage!

(The Fire Marshall was NOT on vacation. Talking to him, I learned that he has never HEARD of the Azores. For the record, he was very nice. The venue held about 800 however, and it was full.)

2.Paul McCartney was, coincidently, in Sacramento on an off day from his tour and he was nice enough to come by the show because he heard that the show was “quite fab!” and he was nice enough to join us on our encore, “Help.” It seemed silly not to use him while he was there so we added a second encore of “The Long And Winding Road” (my fave… my request) Quite the thrill. Kenny asked him to come back out during “Footloose,” but Sir Paul said that rocking with Blue Sky Riders was a memory he didn’t want to dilute. I got his personal cell number.

(Nope. None of that happened.)

3. After our portion of the show we went, as usual, to the lobby and we sold and signed thousands of CDs. We signed so many boobs that we went through two entire boxes of Sharpies!

(90 CDs, one Sharpie, no boobs.)

4. A reporter for Rolliing Stone was in the audience and he asked if we would grant him an interview after the show for an article in the December issue… with the possibility of a cover! A dream come true! I cannot believe that we are finally going to be mentioned in Rolling Stone!

(There WAS someone in the lobby with what looked like a copy of Rolling Stone under his arm but it turned out to be the Fire Marshall’s cousin, Frankie Marshall. We will not be on or inside the cover of Rolling Stone any time soon.)

This plan did not work out as well as I hoped. My expectations built me up… but the reality… well, seriously… was not too shabby. We played a sold out show to an audience that really liked it. That was my reality and since my reality could have been that I spent yesterday  pulling cables and wiring someone’s house… (I used to be an electrician before I sold my first song) ….. I am not disappointed, even a tiny bit.

Although the Paul thing would have been cool, right?