BACK IN THE BAY
11/3
The rest did me some good, and I felt better upon getting up and stirring around some. I felt good enough to do some exercise and hit the gym for a bit after a little wake up period, trying to be mindful of my still injured shoulder. We would be moving over to the Four Seasons in the afternoon, about 3. So Rosie and I had a bite to eat after my gym hit and killed time until the move. At the appointed hour we made the short walk to the Four Seasons and checked in. We got settled in room 1724 and rested up a bit.
I had talked to Jimmy Dillon a couple of times, and we had made plans for dinner. He had some meeting to attend from 7 to 8, so we looked to meet him at the hotel after that. In the meantime, Rose Lane and I went down to the bar to have a drink about 7:30 or so. As I had thought might be the case, our friend Michael Udelson was in the bar playing the piano. When we were here almost exactly a year ago, we had seen him and I had played with him a bit a couple of nights. Michael is an excellent player and a great guy, and it was wonderful to see him again. I immediately sat down with him and said hello…and we played a blues together while we were waiting on our drinks. Jimmy met us soon, and I introduced him to Michael. We all talked for a while and then we bid goodbye to Michael and headed to the Tadish Grill for dinner. Rosie and I have eaten there before…it’s a nice place with simple but good fare. They don’t take reservations, though…and we had a short wait to get a table. The three of us had a great time…Jimmy telling us about his recent endeavors and his family…we have met most all of them before…his mother is a very special person and we asked bout her. We also filled him in on our adventures while we dined.
We walked back to the hotel after and said goodnight to Jimmy, heading up to bed.
11/4
My cold had passed on to Rose Lane, unfortunately…and today I felt that it had come back on me, making me feel a bit worse than I had the day before. So we took it easy the first part of the day, staying in a resting some. Jimmy had called us and invited to pick us up with his friend Tara and get out and about some. So after a very expensive and not so great lunch at the Four Seasons restaurant (70 bucks for pancakes and bacon for me and some soup for Rosie…both highly average at best), we met them and went out. We first went to the Fisherman’s Wharf area…but it was really crowded and we could tell it would be a mess….so we bailed out of that and headed to a nice area, Union Street. There we walked about, checking out the various shops and just wandering here and there. Rose Lane bought some candles and other little items, but that was about it. We hung around for an hour or so, then Jimmy wanted to go to a guitar shop that he knew and we went along. It was a small shop…with a good many guitars on display…but nothing that I thought was all that interesting or amazing. Jimmy introduced us to some of the guys working there…very nice cats that were complimentary to me. We didn’t stay all that long…just 15 minutes or so, then headed back to the hotel. That was about all Rosie and I could handle feeling the way we did, and we gave our thanks to Jimmy and Tara and went up to the room to rest and relax. I checked with the Tour Office on some details concerning our recent changes in the schedule and was given the sad news that Ronnie’s brother Art had died.
11/5
When we got up I made a point of sending out for a copy of the Sunday Sacramento Bee newspaper. Our friend Tom Knudeson that is a two time Nobel Prize winning journalist for the Bee had finished writing his article on me a few days ago and it came out today…on the front page. He did a superb job on it….articulating our story in his fine style and well written lines. I couldn’t have been more pleased with it. I immediately sent him a thank you email and sent some online copies of the article to a few friends and associates. You can check it out at: http://www.sacbee.com/122/story/71950.html
Well done and thanks, Tom!
My friends from Boston, Steve Kramph and Rob Friedman that own Chestnut Hill Sound… and that are launching a new audio product soon that I am involved with… are in town. They are having some meetings with Apple and others about the launch, and wanted to meet with me as well. I had arranged to meet with them around 3 and to go to dinner with them at their friend Larry Petersen’s house in the evening. Larry works with the Monster Cable Company but is also involved with CHS’s new product. Rose Lane was feeling pretty bad with her cold, but I was getting over mine. In the morning we laid in and dealt with emails and other communications, then walked over to the Westfield Mall that is only three blocks from the hotel. There is a large food court there and we got some chili to eat and walked around some. I went back to the room to get ready to meet Steve and Rob while Rosie looked around some more. She came back shortly afterwards, though…and laid in the bed some to rest and nurse her cold. Steve and Rob showed up and we had a great talk about the product and the launch. I can’t say any more about it now, as we are planning on some official announcements before too long… but I am very excited about it and look forward to working with them on the project.
After our discussion we headed over to Larry’s house in Oakland Hills. Rose Lane was of course invited…but feeling as badly as she did she opted to stay at the hotel and rest. We arrived at Larry’s place just at sunset, and his patio offered a fantastic view of the Bay. Introductions were made and his wife Madeline brought us all some Chardonnay to sip while watching the sun fades over the Bay and the lights sparkle into the night. Beautiful setting. Madeline took me on a tour of their lovely house, and then we met back up with all the others for some conversation and more wine before dinner. Larry cooked some steaks on the grill and eventually we all sat down for dinner. Madeline had made some great accouterments to go along with the steaks, and it was indeed a first class meal with first class company. We hung around for an hour or so after dinner…watching some of the football game that Larry had saved on his Tivo and continuing our conversations about various subjects. Finally it was time to go, and after thanking our hosts, Steve and Rob drove me back to the Four Seasons. Rose Lane was up but in the bed…still feeling poorly. I was pretty tired myself and we both turned in in short order.
11/6
Show day for McAfee stadium in Oakland. We played two shows here almost exactly a year ago…but in San Francisco. This time it will be for Oakland. After the usual morning/afternoon routine I took the early van to the gig. I wrote up the set list, making sure we didn’t do too many repeats of our two shows last year. Last time we began with Start Me Up on both shows, so I put JJ Flash as the opener. I included songs that we didn’t do before like She Was Hot, Dead Flowers, Let’s Spend The Night Together, Bitch, Streets Of Love, Under My Thumb and Just My Imagination. Keith put two different tunes in..You Got The Silver and Connection, so that made for quite a different set than a year ago. Before we had Dead Flowers on the set, Mick and I had Little Red Rooster in there as a duet with Van Morrison, who was opening up for us. We even went over LLR in Keith’s dressing room with a small set up. But just before the show Van copped out and left, so we replaced Rooster with Flowers. After our short rehearsal, I met our friends in the Rattlesnake…including Steve Kramph, Rob Friedman and the Petersens; Dave James (who works for Farrari-Carano Vineyards) and his family; Jim Carlton (writer for the Wall Street Journal) and his friends; and Jim and Betty Doerksen and their friends. Rose Lane and I served for three years with Jim and Betty on the American Tree Farm Operating Committee.
After doing the social duties I got dressed and geared up for the show. The gig went really well…up to Connection. We were unclear on the arrangement, and as a result it was quite a mess. But we got through it, and it was the only real problem of the night…well, I do recall the ending of Under My Thumb was somewhat “confused”…anyway, overall it was a great gig. I think it helped that we had done the Beacon shows and had a break from the stadium vibe for a while. It made for a fresh feel to the show.
Back at the hotel I went down to see my pal Michael Udelson play the piano for just a little while. I sat in on a couple of numbers with him and then said goodbye to him as I had to go up and deal with the packing for tomorrow’s leave. Rose Lane was still feeling crummy and after the packing she went right to bed, poor thing. I wasn’t far behind her, though.
