September 19, 2003 - Jacksonville, FL

When I woke up this morning we were pulling into Jacksonville - I guess it was about sevenish. When we got to the hotel it was around 8:00AM and it was beautiful outside and the hotel was right on the beach. Me and Joseph Wooten shared a room. I called my wife to see how things were going and if the power was back on yet, but it wasn't. Bus call wasn't till 12:30 so I figured I could get 2 or 3 hours of sleep. If felt good to get some rest. So I got up around 11:00 and showered, then I walked up to the ocean then I called my wife from the beach. I feel a strong attraction to the ocean, but I feel no desire to get into it - I just feel attracted to it. Then I went to the hotel restaurant to get some fries and went over to where the pool was to check it out. It was a beautiful pool with a waterfall.

I got on the bus at 12:30PM to head to the venue which was the Free Bird Café. We had a 1:00 load in and 3:00 sound check. A piece of gear that we had left in Nashville arrived that we had shipped. The gear went up really fast and sound check went really good. Victor wanted to stick around for a while to try out a new pedal that he bought that he's been using. So I walked in the venue at 12:30PM and didn't walk out till 7:00PM. The doors were scheduled to open at 8:00 and the show was scheduled for 10:00PM. At 7:00, Victor and I and a bunch of friends from North & South Carolina walked a couple of blocks to a seafood restaurant, but the wait was too long. So we found an Italian restaurant and had dinner there instead.

By the time we left the restaurant it was 9:15 and it was time for me to get on stage and make sure all the gear was in order. I finally got a chance to meet Chris Miller who's been emailing me from Jacksonville for a while now. I also saw a guy from bass camp. Every tour now, we see people from Bass Camp at all the shows. Even though we had a lot of technical problems, the show went really well and the crowd was enthusiastic. A bass camp alumni, John Reshard sat in with the band. At 17 years old, he sounds more like Victor Wooten than any bass player I've ever heard. Everybody in the band played really well tonight and for the encore, we debuted an Earth Wind & Fire tune that's going to be coming out on Victor's new CD. The crew at the venue was very helpful and helping us with load in and load out, so I wanted to say thanks to them. The show ended at 1:30AM and we were packed up at 2:15AM. It's now 3:15AM and I'm in the back of the tour bus getting ready to go to sleep. I got my wife up late on the other end of the phone writing this diary entry for me, so I guess I shouldn't comment on how many pretty girls there were in the audience, but I'm stupid and I don't know any better!

(.....no comment!!!!)

Well, I'm drifting off to sleep now so I'll holla' at you guys tomorrow from the Gulf Coast side of Florida.

peace & blessings,

anthony