IIIrd Tyme Out road diary, episode 6

This post is a contribution from Steve Dilling. He will be chronicling IIIrd Tyme Out’s west coast tour for Bluegrass Today in October, as he has done in the past.

October 29, 2010 Well it is Friday morning, we finally have a day off and we are heading back east. We’ve had 7 days straight of performances with 2 on Sunday, so it is time to let the voices rest for a day. Russell is such a great and powerful singer and it is amazing to me how his voice has held up this past week. So many performances and not getting that much rest will take it toll on anyone’s voice, but he has held up through it all.

On Thursday night, we performed in the suburb of Los Angeles in a town called Northridge at the Rancho Cordillero del Norte Theatre. This show was sponsored by the BASC, Bluegrass Association of Southern California. Wow, what a beautiful place! It is a ranch owned by Elisabeth Waldo. It was like stepping into a Mexican ranch with a music theater right in the middle. The yards were neatly manicured with trees and cactus plants all around.

We arrived around 5:00 p.m., loaded in and then they had dinner ready for us. We ate and then had a quick sound check. Everything was running so smooth. We hung out on the bus for a while and were able to visit with our good friends, Alan and Sheri Aleksander, who brought us some of her famous home made guacamole! We were also able to visit with Ben and Nannette Weinberg, who were in charge of the green room. They made sure that we had plenty to eat and drink throughout the night. They wanted us to feel right at home.  We have spent the night with both of these families in the past and it was so good to see them all again.  Also in the audience were renowned, classical mandolinist, Evan Marshall, and his daughter and some big fans of ours from San Diego, Jon and Jeaneth Whitledge.

The show started at 8:00 p.m. There was an opening band called Lonesome Otis. We had never seen them before and it was nice to meet and become friends with them. We took the stage at 8:45 for our first show. Unlike many of the shows that we had played on this trip, where a lot of the audience hadn’t seen us perform, many on this night had. We were getting a lot of requests throughout the show. Believe me, it really makes you feel good when you are 3000 miles from home and people know your music.

We played our first set, took an intermission, sold some CDs and signed autographs. During the break, we met a group of young musicians who were 3 brothers and a sister who has a family band called Wimberly Bluegrass. We played our 2nd set and, on our encore, we invited these guys to come up and sing to finish the show with us. We didn’t have to ask them twice!  They were very nice and it was a pleasure to get to meet them as well.

It was nice to hear that many people in this audience have been following our trip reading the Bluegrass Blog reports that we have been sending in. There have been people at all of the shows following these reports and are daily readers of Bluegrass Today. Thanks to John and Brance for having such a great site to keep people informed.

We loaded up, said our goodbyes and pulled out around 11:00 p.m. Justen drove a couple hours and pulled over to get some sleep with the bus sitting still.

As I am writing this, it is 9:15 a.m. on Friday. We are parked at a Flying J truck stop in Palm Springs, CA. We really don’t have too many plans today. We are just going leave later and drive over to Tucson, AZ for a bluegrass festival that we are performing at on Saturday and Sunday. I will be updating you on that show soon.

Like always, check us out at www.iiirdtymeout.com.

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About the Author

John Lawless

John had served as primary author and editor for The Bluegrass Blog from its launch in 2006 until being folded into Bluegrass Today in September of 2011. He continues in that capacity here, managing a strong team of columnists and correspondents.