September 18, 2003 - West Palm Springs, FL

I woke up on the back of the bus between 6:30 & 7:00 and we hadn't arrived in West Palm Beach yet. So I raised the blinds in the back of the bus and watched the view. When we got into West Palm Beach we went straight to the hotel. Derico and I shared a room. I showered and checked email and then we had a 10:30 bus call because we had 11:00 load in. Danette pushed to get the early load in since we hadn't had a chance to rehearse and we hadn't had the gear set up since February. Set up took a long time but it went really smooth. Once we got set up Victor & I realized that we left the synthesizers for his bass at home in his shed. So we figured we could live without them for the first show but we had Holly overnight them for the next show.

After we got set up I hung out with Michelle Brannon for about a half hour. She's the daughter of Mary Brannon who works at Hot Licks Guitar shop with me. So she gave me a quick tour of the town and her college. It was a half hour that I didn't really have but I needed a break from being in the venue, which was the Carefree Theatre, most of the day. When I got back they were just starting sound check. Sound check went pretty good, we ran through some tunes and they came back to us pretty fast. So we finished sound checking around 6:30PM. The doors opened to the public at 7:00. A student/friend of mine who lives in Florida called Freddie McSears came by so we went for a quick ride. Danette decided to put the showtime back a half hour from 7:30. About 8:15 I didn't one last check of the basses on the stage. Then the show started and it went really good. Everybody was playing well. I was even happy with my solo which is rarely the case for me.

Meanwhile my home town Washington, DC was being pounded by hurricane Isabel. I kept close contact with my wife throughout the day. She lost power for over 24 hours including running water and phone service which is a pain since we get lousy cell phone reception in the house.

After the show I got a chance to talk with Felix and Julius Pastorius. I also had a nice chat with Ingrid Pastorius, their mom. She's such a sweet soul - we promised to keep in touch with each other. I also saw a couple of other friends from bass camp. By the time we finished hanging with the guests and loading out it was roughly 1:30AM. We rode back to the hotel to shower. Then we started our journey to Jacksonville which I think is going to be a 6 or 7 hour ride by bus - it takes a bit longer on the bus pulling a trailer than it does in a car. I talked to my wife a couple more times and then fell asleep in the back of the bus.

peace & blessings,

anthony