January 29, 2003 - San Juan Capistrano, California

When I woke up on the bus, we were in San Juan Capistrano. Even though it was a little foggy, I could tell we were in a very beautiful town. Before this tour was booked, I had never heard of this city before. But it was very cool and the people were very friendly. We had a couple of extra hours, so we checked into our hotel rooms first. This is going to be our last overnight stay until Feb 3, so I was going to make the best of it. I set up my incense, candles and computer and pretended I was home.

When we got to the venue, which was the Coach House, by the way, I saw that it was a dinner theater. It was kind of an area that seemed like is was in an industrial park, so I knew there wasn't going to be much for me to walk around and see. Tonight we had an opening band called The Finish Line, so we had to set up sound check and then tear down some of our gear so they could set up.

Rhonda Smith (the bass player for Prince) and Kat Dyson (formerly with Prince and now with Donny Osmond), came down to visit us from L.A. We hung out with them for a while and talked. It was good to see Rhonda again - she told me she would call me next time she was in the DC area. I took a picture with Rhonda and Kat, so look for it on the web site sometime after the tour. Kerry Lathon from Lathon Basswear also came to visit. He had shirts & hats for the bass players in the band. Victor and I took pictures for his web site which is http://www.Lathonbasswear.com. There's some cool stuff on there - check it out! Also, a friend of mine, Rob DeSantis, brought his girlfriend to the show and they even brought me a gift!

The opening band was good. After they finished we took the stage and it was one of the best performances of the tour. (I know I said that before, but they keep getting better!). Derico did a mind blowing drum solo! But that's to be expected - that cat is "bad"! Later in the show, Victor asked me if I wanted to do a solo - I was feeling pretty good so I did. It felt like the solo was pretty cool. I'd love to hear a recording of it.

After the show a lot of friends and fans stuck around to get autographs. I met the parents of the opening band's drummer - they stopped me to tell me how great the show was. His mom's name was Barbie and his father was a rep for Fender Guitars and he gave me a business card. The bass player for the opening band, Adam inquired about studying bass with me. I've been getting a lot of inquiries on the tour about lessons, at the gigs and by email. So I took Adam on the tour bus and we took out some of Victor's basses and we played them.

Our bus driver didn't get to the venue until late so weren't able to move the bus around to load up the gear right away. So by the time he did, all the people who were supposed to help us load up were gone. So it was just Ted, Zach & I loading up ALL the gear at the end of the night. Because of that, I was very tired when I got back to the hotel room. So I lit some incense and candles and crashed. You get to a point when you're on tour where you lose track of the days and now I'm at that point. When you're on the road, every day feels like Saturday. That's all for now!

peace & blessings,

anthony