March 16, 2005 - TN
Hey Y'all,….
It's time for the next installment of my Victor Wooten tour diary,…or journal,…or whatever you wanna' call it.
I haven't done a journal since the summer when were in Spain . And I didn't even finish that one. I promise that I will finish it,…those memories are still fresh in my mind.
So many things have happened since then. The VWB played at Bass player magazines 15 th anniversary at the summer NAMM. We had a Bass/Nature camp. We did a very short southeast tour. My wife and I visited Italy . My stepdaughter, Shauna, was there studying ‘Art'. I got invited to play at the BassQuake at the Winter NAMM. I took some guys that I work with at home. It was very 1 st time I played a gig as the Anthony Wellington Band. We didn't perform any of my originals because we didn't have time to rehearse at all. In early February I went down to Nashville to have a ‘bass only' rehearsal with Victor for this tour. Those dates coincided with the Super Bowl. So,…we watched the game then we played through the tunes. I'm gonna' hafta' play bass on a lot more tunes on this tour so we needed to work out “who is gonna' play what,…and where”. I love when we switch off bass lines inside a song. The whole band got together to rehearse the 1 st week of March. We added a new member. Her name is Saundra Williams. You guys may remember her from last winter's tour entries where she performed some shows with us. She brings a ‘new' dimension to the band. After that week of rehearsals I went and taught at Gerald Veasley's Bass Boot Camp. I had a great time and the students seemed very receptive to my teaching style. And just like at Victor's camp I got to work along side of my bass idols. The other ‘main' teachers were Gary Willis, Michael Manring, Bakithi Kumalo and Gerald. That's a ‘helluva' lineup of teachers.
And, of course, during the last 8 or 9 months I've been giving a lot of private bass lessons at a pace of about 100 per week. So that averages to about 3600 lessons since my last tour diary entry. Even with time off for vacation and gigs it's probably still over 2800 lessons. And my 2 Music Dojo classes have been running every month for well over a year. I'm getting students from all over the world. I'll add the level 3 slap course when I get a break( A break! Yea, right!). Plus, I've been doing some very cool duo gigs with John Luskey.
Anyways,…When I got home from Gerald's camp on Sunday(March 13) I decided that I would teach on Monday(March 14) and Tuesday(March 15). I probably shoulda' used those 2 days to rest but I got a ‘bug' for this teaching thing. I had a 10pm flight (DC time) scheduled for Tuesday night. So,…I finished teaching at 7:30pm and my wife drove me to the airport. The flight to Nashville was uneventful for all 12 of us passengers and my basses. The whole time I've been touring with Victor I've only had to ‘check' my bass 1 time. They made me check it at the plane. It was a very small commuter plane. I watched from the window in horror as the baggage handler tossed my double gig bag with 2 very expensive Fodera basses in it ‘up' into the baggage compartment of the plane,…from the ground. I'm sure I screamed out loud,…which made the other passengers uncomfortable the whole flight. Anyway,…I try to forget about that incident when I fly but it's always in the back of mind. Fortunately, I haven't had any trouble taking my double gig bag on the plane. And it fits in the overhead compartment. I'd rather put myself in the baggage compartment than my basses!!!
Victor picked me up from the airport about 11:15pm ( Nashville time). It was after midnight when we got to his house but we decided to gather up some tour gear so we wouldn't hafta' do so much in the morning. We were supposed to meet the tour bus at 10:30am . It was after 2am when we went to bed. We both were up by 7am . We loaded up his car and we met the bus a ‘lil before 11am . Then I rode with Zach Newton from the Flecktones to pick up some supplies for the tour. We met the bus at the high school where we were performing that night. The staff from the school was very helpful and one of them made a whole buncha' homemade chocolate chip cookies. I never got a chance to meet the woman who made the cookies but,…MAN,…they were good!!!
We were a ‘lil behind getting set up but we managed to pretty much start the show on time. Considering that we didn't get a chance to really soundcheck and go through some tunes we had a very good show. We decided to keep it short since we have such a long drive to Vermont after the show. We played at the high school that JD's children attend. And,…it was JD's birthday. The school's drum corp performed a ‘Happy Birthday' piece for JD during our intermission. That was cool because it was a surprise to JD. The rest of the show went very good. The new songs lend themselves really well to being ‘acted out' on stage. And we're all getting more involved with ‘show' aspect of this tour. Our ‘light' show is incredible. Ted Atwell is our lighting director (LD) and he has some great concepts for the show. Victor's vision for this tour is amazing and I can't really go into detail about in the diary yet because I want it to be a surprise to all of you who get to see the show. Victor even called me out for an ‘impromptu' bass solo at the end. I had nothing prepared so just laid down a ‘think' layer of Funk. After the show we got packed up really fast because we have such a long ride and we're running a ‘lil behind schedule. So we didn't have as much time as we usually do to spend with our family, friends and fans.
I'd like to extend a big thanks to Zach for helping us out with the 1 st show.
Happy Birthday JD and Derrick Frederick (I didn't forget)!
peace & blessings,
Anthony
“Smells Like Funk”
