September 26, 2003 - Roanoke, VA

Finally! The day I was gonna' get to see my baby. I called my wife in the morning when I woke up and she was already on her way to Roanoke and we were still a couple of hours away from Roanake. When we got in I took all my luggage and my dirty laundry upstairs into the hotel rum because I planned on doing my laundry today. It was only 10:30AM and but call wasn't till 1:30PM. I ran into Victor when I was grabbing my luggage and he asked me if I wanted to run over to the mall that was across the street. I ended up putting off the laundry again and walking with him to the mall. We talked about a lot of cool things music related and non music related.

While we were in the mall he remembered he had to do a telephone interview. Victor does a lot of telephone interviews while we are on the road. Early in the day you just ALWAYS see him on the phone. They are usually for the shows that are coming up in various cities. Today's interview was for the Ashville, NC show. Speaking of interviews, Victor is on the front of 2 major magazines right now. He's on the front of this month's Bass Player magazine and the Flecktones are on the front of Downbeat magazine. There's also a feature on Derico Watson on the latest Modern Drummer magazine.

But anyway, when we got back from the mall I went back up to the room and showered. As I was getting ready my wife walked in the door. She looked beautiful as usual. I'm very lucky to have her.

(...aw gee...not as lucky as I am to have you!)

We decided that I was going to drive over to the venue which was the Jefferson Center with her before the bus left. So we walked down to the bus so she could say hello to everyone. When we got to the venue the first person we saw was Snow. She studies bass with me back home. She had cut and styled her hair differently and had on makeup - I think she must have a boyfriend! Hee hee!! Then I ran into my friend 'Pete' and her husband Wayne. It's always a pleasure to see them. They drove down from the DC area.

While we were loading in and setting up Victor had to do a clinic in one of the other halls in the venue. I kept peeking in every now and then. There were a lot of people there and the clinic was going good. I saw Cameron and a couple of other people from Bass Camp. Later John Yates and other Bass Campers and some of the band went out to an Indian restaurant, but I couldn't go because I had more tech work to do. What was very exciting for me was that Toné brought my basses from home. I didn't have enough room to fly with them when I went to Nashville but I wanted to bring them. She brought my number 1 which is my 5 string Imperial Fodera and she brought my new 7 string by Jon Maghini - mbasses.com . They both sounded great through Victor's rig.

Before the show we had a very nice catered meal. The show was incredible! Everybody played really well.

( I need to interject here - Anthony played a kick-ass bass solo that was so sweet & amazing...and then dedicated it to me! That was one of the sweetest things he's ever done!)

The venue was very nice it used to be a high school that had been converted into a theater/arts center. The stage was so big that we didn't have the small technical problems that we usually have trying to play on a little stage.

After the show we signed what seemed like hundreds of autographs. The people were very warm and friendly and it's always good to see Bass/Nature Camp alumni. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, Kelly Gravely sat in with us - he's an incredible drummer from Roanoke and he's worked with Victor many times before...AND he's a very funny dude! So the bus had to head on to West Virginia tonight, but we don't have to be there till 8:00PM and we're not hitting the stage till 11:00PM. So my wife and I are gonna' stay at the hotel tonight and make that beautiful drive through the mountains of West Virginia during the day.

peace & blessings

anthony