Photo By Caeli Lohr

It’s been a surreal 32 hours. Flying out to New Orleans at midnight from the middle of a tour, meeting a whole group of Kelly’s best friends and learning a choral arrangement with them right off the plane… soundchecking, playing the opening set, watching Imogen’s amazing show and singing the choral piece in the middle of it… getting to sleep at 2AM and getting up at 5:30 to fly back to the Northwest.

One of the strangest parts is how long I feel I’ve known all these people. It feels like we did a whole tour, not one gig… yet I barely learned everyone’s names. They all did a killer job onstage last night, especially MJ Cyr who opened up the show with me and knocked us all out with her song ‘Afterglow.’ What a song – beautiful. You are onto something there, MJ.

By the way, the highlight for me may have been the ovation I received for my solo during MJ’s song – an iPhone solo. She talked me into playing an improvised synth part on an app called BeBot, sliding my finger on the iPhone screen to move the pitch around. It sounded like a cross between a Theremin and a distorted guitar. The crowd loved it.

I always forget how much I love the South. People are unbelievably responsive here; you couldn’t dream up a better environment for a musician. I felt like they were on my team last night before I played a note, and when I started digging in it was just awesome. The audience felt like an enormous vibrating drum… and they were there to see someone else!

By the way, I’m at a coffee place in the airport, and they have a ‘soft rock’ radio station blasting. In the last 25 minutes I’ve heard ‘Summer Of ’69,’ ‘Easy Lover’ and ‘Livin’ On A Prayer.’ I feel like I’m in a donut shop in Alberta, not New Orleans (adding even more to the sleep-deprived weirdness of the moment). I’m definitely ready to zone out on the plane.

It’s hard to come down here and not have time to explore and soak it all in. For me this place is Disneyland for the soul. But the bottom line is: we rocked the House of Blues, and my host Carl Fravel served me both jambalaya and red beans & rice. Check, check and check!

Onwards…

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