Whittier-With Belinda James And The Rain

Fox On The Run
Ring Of Fire
What's Up
Sundown
Fever
Good Time Charlie
Wagon Wheel (Dave sang it)
It's Been A While
Blue Eyes Crying In  The Rain
For What Its Worth
Already Gone (Dave sang this one too)
Come Together
Cinnamon Girl
Desire 

Belinda James sang on What's Up, Fever, It's Been A While, Come Together
Steven Lam-Guitar on Desire

(Julie and Franklin-saying hello)

Friday Night-Played congas for Dreams Of Arcadia opening for Zamtrip At The Underground CR

It was the first time that I saw Julie since the Monticello gig,  I've been stuck with a summertime cold, she was stuck with various ailments and hip problems.  Despite that and being tired, she and Ryan put on a great show.  Afterwards I got to meet the band from Zamtrip, the guys were quite nice and I chatted a while with the bass player.  Very cool guys.

The Underground is in the basement of the Lumberyard, a hard core strip joint, where you bring your own booze and keep your cell phones out of the way for bouncers would take them away.   In order to go to the bathroom, you had to go upstairs and onto the stage area.  The trick was to move fast before some dancer would come over to take your money away.  Downstairs, The Underground was full of black lights and it was quite dark, but they are starting to book bands down there.  I wouldn't mind playing there again.  Julie and Ryan did sneak out, but I stayed for the whole show for Zamtrip.  I figured since they supported us as the opening act, I would hang around.  They were quite loud and thank God I bought earplugs but for a band out of Wyoming, they were as hard rock as Four Day Creep.  Afterwards, Ryan, Julie and myself did a bit of jamming before we all ran out of energy and called it an early morning.  Didn't get home till 3 AM.

The Whittier acoustic showcase had plenty of people including our neighbor Rick, who plays in Rugged Cross, a gospel bluegrass band that plays across the street at the church during special events.  He played bout five gospel numbers to which I actually found it was quite easy to follow him since they were mostly D G and A.  Belinda came later with Dave and Andrew Knight and we did the usual songs, tho I couldn't play Blue Bayou in her key and started It's Been A While on a lower key, it sounded more closer to the Staind grunge version but it was too low for Belinda so I moved the Capo up to third fret.  A newcomer sang Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain in D, G and A as well.  I may incorporate this song into my set list in the future. The songs that we did were a bit ragged, we haven't played together in two months and I couldn't remember Come Together till afterward.  

David Lam sang on Six Days On The Road and Greenback Dollar.
Belinda's friend Dave sang Wagon Wheel and Already Gone.  The latter song is easy to play in G D C range. Probably the one Eagles song I would play, tho Ol 55 and Outlaw Man are in the song list.

Tonight, we had storms going through the area.  Northeastern Iowa (Dubuque) had five inches of rain the past couple days and the rivers are running high in that area.  We haven't gotten slammed that hard yet.  I do know last year we had floods in our area.  On a positive, the weather has stayed warm, but the negative is that the leaves are falling off the trees and all over the car and they get in between the stripping and the window.  Looks like the car going have to get powered washed from now till the last leave falls from the tree. 

Overall performance tonight was better than I thought it would be despite the long layoff and not practicing the guitar.  I did go over a couple songs before heading out to Culvers for a mushroom burger and then the usual paying for it at the toilet 10 minutes later.  Good thing Whittier has a toilet waiting for me when I got there.  The problem of being stuck with a cough that won't go away and all the cold meds had made me a zombie for the longest time.  But looking back at the archives, I have been ill quite a bit the past couple years.  Julie is very good at performing while under the weather, she had to, but when I get nailed, I don't play.  There was talk about canceling the Friday Night opening for Zamtrip but thankfull it wasn't and people liked what they heard.

By the time I finished the jam with Cinnamon Girl, most of the players packed up and went home, even David Lam was nowhere to be found.  His brother and I played around with Desire (the U2 song) to close the whole thing and packed up and made it home before the next rains came around.  The Grant Wood Festival is tomorrow in Stone City.  We'll see if the rains will be done by then.