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 26, 2010 We hit the road headed towards Bakersfield at 2:00 pm Monday afternoon. Russell got the door repaired, so no more worries on that for a while…. let’s hope. We stopped by the Detroit Diesel place in Bakersfield and got the parts we needed for the alternator, so things are looking up. We want to give a big thanks to Dave, the service manager at Valley Detroit Diesel, for reaffirming our belief in the human race!! He sent us on our way without a penny’s charge for the alternator parts or for putting them on for us!!
After finishing up at Valley Detroit Diesel shop, we drove over to the Valley Baptist Muiti-purpose Auditorium in Bakersfield for a concert promoted by Gary Young Productions.
When we arrived, we were amazed at this concert venue. The stage was laid out beautifully. The sound system was state of the art. We could not wait to sound check in this venue. We loaded in around 4:45 p.m., started sound check about 5:30 and had dinner about 6:30.
The show started at 7:30. We had an opening act called Barton and Ash. We had met a couple of these guys before, and it was great to visit with them again. We took the stage at 8:00 and played about 45 minutes. Once again, most of this audience had never seen the band before, so even though it evoked groans from the guys in the band, I was able to pull out some of my old jokes! I loved it. The audience seemed to love them to. When Russell noticed this, he even pulled out a few jokes of his own.
We had an intermission during which time we were able to visit and sign autographs. I was especially happy to see my old friend Richard Smith. He is a banjo player buddy of mine who lives there in town. Again, there were several California Bluegrass Association members in attendance including our friends, Craig Wilson, and Kelvin Gregory. It means a lot to us to have the support that the CBA has given us over the years. They are a great organization.
We played our 2nd set and finished up around 10:00 PM. After the show, we were able to visit a few minutes before we had to load up. Before we left, Edgar had seen some gray foxes running around. After inquiring with some of the locals, he found out that there were some fox dens underneath one of the raised buildings on the campus, so we went over and checked out the gray foxes. They were pretty tame and would actually let you get up close to them. Of course Edgar wanted to pick one up, but he just wasn’t quite fast enough!
We got on the road around 11:00, or so, and drove about 20 minutes up to the Flying J truck stop and pulled in and called it a night.
As I’m writing this report, it is 11:15 am on Tuesday. We’re at the junction of Interstate 5 and hwy 58 at a truck wash getting the bus washed once again. Hopefully, we can stay out of the rain for a few days and keep Big Red clean. While stopped here, Wayne, Justen, Jack, Russell, and myself walked across the street to have some breakfast. It was nice to have Wayne and Justen eat with us, as normally they aren’t awake this early when we are on the road.
We will be leaving shortly to go up to Don Quixote’s in Felton, CA. This is a great venue. We played up there last year. I will be sending in a report on that on Wednesday.
Check us out at www.iiirdtymeout.com
