January 8th - Philadelphia, PA

Philadelphia - the city of brotherly love. I woke up around 7'ish. We were on our way to Phili. Fortunately all the roads were dry. We were all at the front of the bus just talking about all kinds of different stuff. We arrived at the hotel around 9:00AM. Since load in wasn't till 1:00, we got to check in to our hotel rooms. I immediately went to sleep after checking in. The bus call wasn't until 12:30, so I knew I could get a decent nap in. I was very tired from the night before. I guess I woke up from my nap around 11:00, so I got dressed and went downstairs for the bus call. We arrived at the venue, which was the Theater of the Living Arts. It was in a very cool part of town. There were a lot of stores and restaurants. The venue had a very good crew and the load in went very quickly. Joseph and Ted officially started their game of Duct-tape basketball. Ted took the trash can pretty far away from stage, so I don't think either of them made a shot. As big as Victor's bass rig is, I'm becoming very proficient at setting it up. The rig went up very fast. I used the extra time I had to get some practice in. So I played on all of Victor's 6 basses as I tuned them up. Once I was done with his basses, then I practiced with my 5 string for a while and then I pulled out my 7 string. I got a decent amount of time in practicing on the 7 string. Regi came over and listened to me practice for a while. Then he asked if he could play the 7 string. He really liked it a lot. Jon Maghini really did a great job on that bass. If you want check his basses out go to mbasses.com. I was hoping to get enough nerve up to play it during the show tonight. Victor had gone for a walk while we were setting up and when he got back he told me that Gerald Veasly would be sitting in with us. Since he was going to sit in, I figured I wouldn't get a chance to solo because of time constraints.

Sound check went pretty good. We worked on a new intro a little bit. Then the guys practiced a song they're going to do in NY with a friend that's going to sit in with the band. After sound check, Victor gave Divinity a bass lesson on stage. I went for a quick stroll down the street just to see what stores are in the neighborhood. A couple of people outside the venue recognized me. It's always cool to be recognized and appreciated for what you do. When I got back from my stroll Victor was finishing up his lesson with Divinity. So the 3 of us decided to walk out and get something to eat. We found an Indian restaurant a block away and decided to eat there. While we were waiting for our meal, we talked about different ways to study and learn music. I talked to them about some of my concepts for teaching music and music theory to my students. After we left the Indian restaurant we walked back to the bus which was parked about a block away from the venue. We were told the generator wouldn't be running since the venue was in the middle of the city. But when we walked by the bus we found that the generator WAS running, so we were able to watch some DVD's in the heat. When the bus is not running, the only way to have power on the bus is from the generator. When we park on city streets, we can't have the generator running because of fumes and noise. Fortunately Jeff was able to find a side street close to the venue that didn't have any store fronts or houses so he was able to run the generator.

I decided to go back into the venue around 8:00 to tune up the basses again. I saw Earl Matthews and two other people from camp. Also saw the entire Tenaglia family - Matt came to a bass camp a couple of years ago and the WHOLE family came along! It was good to see them. He also owns one of my old Foderas. Did I mention how good it is to have JD around? We have this ongoing joke about Pepsi and Coke...he's a real Pepsi fan and I'm a Coke fan. So every time he goes out to get a Pepsi, he gets 2 of them and gives me a Pepsi too! So every time I get a Coke for me, I get one for him too (hee hee!).

Before the show Derico told me he felt like it was going to be a good show. The show was sold out and the place was packed. Right from the very start the vibe was hot and the energy was very high. About halfway through the show, Victor invited Gerald on and they started playing the intro to Yinnin' and Yangin' and he started soloing over the beginning of the song. While he was soloing Victor pointed to me and then pointed to himself and Gerald which meant that he wanted me to come out and trade solos with them. I was nervous and excited at the same time. so Victor introduced me to come out to solo. I don't usually feel good about my playing, but I played a really good solo. At the end of my solo, I started playing the melody to Victor's song 'Resolution'. Then Victor and Gerald joined in in harmony. Then we started trading solos. That whole experience was very cool for me. Everybody in the band played 'smokin' solos tonight! 'Hub', the bass player for the group 'The Roots' came to the show. He ended up watching the show from backstage. He was very, very impressed. At the end of the show for the encore, Victor called Gerald back out. After the show Victor, Gerald, Gerald's friend Lee and myself decided to go out to get something to eat. We walked a couple of blocks down the street to a diner to order breakfast. We laughed and joked for over an hour. Gerald gave Victor and I a ride back to the hotel after that. I got to my room about 3:00AM. It was late and I was tired, but the 'hang' was well worth it.

peace & blessings

Anthony