January 4th, 5th & 6th, 2004 - Nashville, TN

As usual I'm really looking forward to this tour. Got a good feeling about this one. I flew to Nashville on Sunday the 4th, but that was OK since we really didn't have anything on the schedule to do that day. Joseph and his two boys, Justice and Jessie picked me up at the airport. It's always good to see his boys - I don't get to see them as much as I like...and Jessie is officially taller than me now. We went back to Joseph's house and chilled out for a while. I dropped off my luggage and my basses, then we went out to the mall to grab some dinner and play video games. When we got back, Joseph was telling me about his new TV game. I can't remember if it was Play Station or XBox or Nintendo...his wife got him a boxing game that he wanted me to check out since we're both boxing fans. The competition started out lighthearted since I was just checking the game out. Once I got comfortable with the game, I started whoopin' his butt! We played the game over and over for a long time. Jessie and Justice were upset with us since they wanted to play before they went to bed, but our competition was so intense, that we never let them get on. We finally finished and went to bed for the night.

The next morning, Victor picked me up around 8:00AM. The band had a rehearsal scheduled from noon to midnight at one of the local rehearsal halls. We went back to his house to gather up the gear and when we got to the rehearsal hall, everybody else was pretty much set up. There was more stuff we needed to get, so I volunteered to go back out and get it. I brought Victor's son, Adam, back to the rehearsal hall with me. I saw Victor's face light up when he saw me come in the door with Adam. Kit and her daughter were in town from Michigan. They came to visit us at the rehearsal hall. Lisa Baker, Keio and Futureman also dropped in. We played 'Nobody Knows My Name' for Adam because he loves that song. Then Victor looked at me with a sly look on his face and said, "You got some music to learn!" They had worked out a song while I was out running errands and he needed me to learn the song to play bass on it. Later on Linda Thompson came to visit. She was friend's with my wife's brother, Joe Compito.

After rehearsal, we packed up all the gear and we loaded the tour bus that night. It was cool to see all the band members again after a couple of months and it's very nice having JD Blair around again. Having two drummers is very cool. We won't see Ted till tomorrow and we won't see Danette till the first show in Rochester, but everybody else is here. The cast of character includes, Victor, Joseph and Regi Wooten, Derico Watson, JD Blair, Divinity, Kurt Storey, and myself. It was after midnight when we got back to Victor's place. So we talked for a little bit and then I called my wife to talk to her for a while. Victor yelled into my room to see Kaki King on the Conan O'Brien show, since she had opened for us on a couple of dates the last tour. I think it's very cool to see her on the late night talk show. After that, I went back into 'my' room and I went to bed.

The following morning we both woke up around 8:00AM. We had a bunch of errands to run. We had a lot of tour finances to take care of. So we ran a couple of errands early, then we stopped past a book store and bought some books. After that, we went to see his son who had started a new gymnastics class. Adam Wooten is a funny dude! He always makes me laugh. After he got used to the new environment, it looked like he had some fun.

After Adam's class we went to Hemphill Bus Company. They are one of the premier tour bus companies in the United States. Just about everybody uses them. I really like going to that place. There's something very cool about seeing hundreds of tour buses lines up. It's cool hearing the tour bus drivers inside talking about who they're driving for. Today I met 'Bear' - he just got done driving for Kiss and Aerosmith, and he's about to go out with Janet Jackson. I told him to ask Janet why she stopped calling me! Victor told me later that he is one of Hemphill's main drivers. He's pretty much driven for everybody. They always treat Victor with a lot of respect and admiration. I think that's very cool considering all the stars they drive around all the time. Huge pop stars get a lot of attention, but extremely talented musicians will always win everybody's respect, and Victor has respect from everybody in the music business.

After we left Hemphill we ran a couple more errands and then I went back to Victor's house and took a nap. We had an 8:00 PM bus call, but fortunately we didn't have to load the bus since we loaded it yesterday. It just seems like we should be leaving earlier since we have such a long drive and we lose an hour with the time change. I just have a feeling that we won't get there by 12:00PM, which is our scheduled load in time. It seems like it's a 16 hour tour bus ride from Nashville to NYC and I think we have to go another 4 hours past there, but I don't know, I'm just a 'tech'.

Anyway, the bus finally started moving around nine-ish and there was a lot of energy on the bus. You could tell that we're all glad to be around each other again. But everybody seemed to get tired early and I think they were all in their bunk by midnight. Of course, Regi was up front sleeping on the sofa with his guitar in his arms. Him sleeping with his guitar is a common sight. Of course, I'm in the back lounge because I don't like sleeping in the bunk. It's about 1:00AM EST and I'm on the phone with my wife and she's typing the tour diary as I speak it to her over the phone. I have no clue where we are, but hopefully when I wake up tomorrow, we'll be in Rochester, NY. Goodnight!

peace & blessings

Anthony