Spring 1999
 
Thursday, May 17th
so...did we tell you that our new bus was yellow?...yep, like the record...like scott's drums...yellow, yellow, yellow. we'reloving it, though! we woke up on the beach in florida yesterday. well rested and ready to rock (after a dip in the gulf of mexico, some jet-skiing and some parasailing). charlie says it was the best day of his life. tonight we rocked in gainsville (go gators!) and tomorrow we head to our home away from home...birmingham, alabama!! anyway, things are going really, really well for us... thank you! we'll talk to you tomorrow or the day after. oh, by the way...the collective soul guys are all very cool and a talented bunch to boot. for those of you who have the opportunity, you should definately check this tour out (hopefully while train is still a part of it!). BYE.
 
Wednesday, June 16th
we're back on the road! we had a relaxing (yeah, right!)
10 days off. we flew into houston from our different vacation
locations on monday afternoon. the entire band and crew went
out for a nice dinner and then we all went to see the new
austin powers movie...a good way to start the tour. then we
climbed onto our tour bus for the first time and headed
to lake charles, louisianna where we performed the first show
of the tour with collective soul last night. it was one of
the best tour kick-off shows that we've ever had! everybody
is happy and cozy on our new bus and ready to kick some ass
this summer. oh, and we'll DEFINATELY be heading west after
this next run of dates, so stick with us! anyway, we're in
panama beach, florida today. it was SO nice to fall asleep
on the bus last night in lake charles and wake up on the beach
in florida this morning! life is good....thank you all! we'll
see you on tour and we'll check in with you on this page as
often as we can now that we're back in action.
 
peace,
train
 
Wednesday, June 2nd
we're home!!! back in the bay area for some r&r before
hooking up with our TOUR BUS in houston to begin our tour
with collective soul on the 15th.

the past week was a whirlwind of airplanes, radio stations,
memorial day festival shows in green bay and hartford and
concluding with a raucous show in salt lake city, which
featured a number of sake induced improve jam sessions (our
local columbia rep took us out for sushi before the show).

anyway, it was a very successful tour for us. thanks to
everybody who came out to the shows. we saw alot of familiar
faces and made alot of new friends. we'll look forward to
seeing all of you on tour this summer. for the collective soul
and hootie dates we will be the opening act on the main stage,
so come early! for the dave mathews dates we will be playing
on a side stage in between the opening act and dave.
 
ok....we're officially on vacation now. we'll drop you a line
from our new TOUR BUS in a few weeks!

thanks again, everybody...we love you!!!
train
 
Saturday, May 29th
so, we flew into oklahoma city from denver this morning
to play a big festival in a baseball stadium. the head-
liner was none other than the red-rocker himself, our
fellow bay area native, sammy hagar (who is one of the
nicest "rock-stars" you'll ever meet). there was a major
thunderstorm/downpour about an hour before our set, but it
cleared up just in time for our show. we were playing on
rented gear (as we always do for "fly-in" shows) and charlie
blew up two amps during the opening song (free) and had to
plug directly into the board to finish the show. it all
worked out, though. it was our very first visit to oklahoma
and there were about 10,000 people when we went on at around
4:30PM. we signed autographs for hours after the show and
everybody was incredibly enthusiastic and very kind to us.
a large portion of the money that was raised will be donated
to the victims of the toronado that hit oklahoma city earlier
this month. anyway, we'll definately come back and visit y'all
again soon! and for those of you on the west coast (i.e. san
fran, seattle, LA, etc.)...hang in there and don't forget
about us!!! we haven't forgotten you and we promise to come
back and do some shows later this summer.

happy memorial day weekend! be safe...
 
Wednesday, May 26th
we're back in california!! we flew into ontario today for some
big orange festival or something that's going on in san bernardino
tomorrow. it's nice to be back on pacific time.

anyway, phoneboy (scott, in case you've forgotten) got his phone
back today...he's happy as a clam.

we had our final ride in the van this morning on the way to the
airport in st. louis. it's being driven to nashville where the
tour bus will pick up our trailer and the van will sit in a
parking lot until called back into action (hopefully never!).
we'll finish off the rest of this weeks' dates traveling by
plane and renting gear. we get a week off at home starting next
wednesday.
 
Tuesday, May 25th
tonight was our final night touring with "my friend steve".
they're a great band that y'all should check out. anyway...
during the final song of our show last night (meet virginia)
in st. louis in front of a small, but enthusiastic crowd,
steve (of "my friend steve") jumped out on the dance floor
sans cowboy hat, train stickers and an "i love train" shirt
and proceeded to break-dance and cheer us on wildly until
pat climbed down off of the stage and took him in his arms
for a slow dance. steve got bored with pat's dance
and headed back to the stage where he crawled around
seductively and latched onto jimmy's leg for the entire
guitar solo.

thanks for touring with us, guys...have a
great summer and be safe.

Sunday, may 23rd
HOLY SHIT!! we just had the craziest weekend of the entire tour!
you people in birmingham and raleigh are nuts...we love you!!

here's an example of how crazy things can get on the road...
we performed in lexington, kentucky on wednesday night and drove
to louisville right after the show and hopped on a plane to
birmingham. we arrived at 8AM and were taken directly to a
recording studio to record an alternate (slightly edgier) version
of "meet virginia" for radio. we recorded until 4, went to
soundcheck and then performed at the oak mountain amphitheater for
6,000 people. we got about two hours of sleep that night and were
on television (good morning alabama) at 7AM. we then went back
to the recording studio for a few hours before heading to another
studio to perform a live radio show in front of an audience of
contest winners. then we went back to the studio and finished
recording at around 6PM and were taken to the amphitheater for
night two of the x-fest (thank you birmingham!!). after hangin'
around for a few hours to sign some autographs, we went back to
our hotel for another two hours of rest. we had a 4:30AM van call
to drive to atlanta where we jumped on a plane and flew to raleigh.
we did a live radio show, soundcheck and a show in raleigh (thank
you raleigh!!...you guys are crazy!). we signed some autographs
for a few hours and headed back to our hotel where many of the
bands from the days' event (including members of train, everything,
fastball, marvelous three and my friend steve) had gathered for a
few drinks at the hotel bar...no sleep! back on a plane to atlanta
this morning where we jumped back in our van and drove to
chattanooga for a show with collective soul tonight. anyway, it's
all good. we're a little sleepy, but feeling quite productive.
we get a week off in june before heading back out (in a bus!).
we'll be doing dates with collective soul, marvelous three, hootie
and the blowfish, and dave mathews starting june 15th through
august 15th (check our website for the dates).
gotta go.
 
Thursday, May 20th
so...we've got some new nicknames on this tour...pat is
"superdude", scott is his sidekick "phoneboy" (he LOVES
his cellphone!), and chris fox (our new tour manager) is
"the evil sly fox". well, phoneboy lost his cellphone
in houston the other day and is in a major depression.
superdude needs a nap. we're trying desperately to get
the phone back and get some rest before the evil sly fox
does some unthinkable deed that could jeopardize the tour.
stay tuned...

oh, by the way, we had some awesome shows this week in
houston and lexington. we met mark stepnoski (two-time
superbowl champion center for the dallas cowboys) at the
hard rock in houston...had some pictures taken with him
and teased him a little about the 49ers kickin' their ass
for the past few years. he was a super nice fellow and
we wish him the best of luck this season.

we're in birmingham today and tomorrow for the big x-fest
shows at the oak mountain amphitheater. we KNOW these
shows are gonna be crazy!! superdude says that he is
determined not to let his lack of sleep or the impending
threat of the evil sly fox get him down. we'll lend
phoneboy the band cellular to get him through the weekend.
 
we'll be ok.
 
talk to ya soon.
 
Saturday, May 15th
wow...crazy couple of days for us! yesterday morning we drove
from detroit to grand rapids where we did two live radio shows
and then caught a flight to new york. we arrived in the big
apple at about midnight and were whisked off to our hotel and
in bed by about 2AM. we woke up at 7AM for a state-of-the-union
meeting with our manager and then were driven to a club where
we performed a private show for a few hundred radio programers
from around the country. we left the gig and went straight to
the airport where we caught a 1:00 flight back to grand rapids
and went straight to soundcheck. we are now relaxing in our hotel
for an hour before our show tonight. crazy! and our moms
wonder why we don't write more often! anyway, we'll get some
rest tonight. tomorrow is a travel day...we'll drive to columbus,
ohio and spend the night. we have a monday morning flight to
houston where we'll do a tuesday morning radio show and a tuesday
night show at the hard rock cafe...sorry to those of you who
can't get tickets due to the show being a radio thing...we'll
come back to houston REALLY soon (probably in july with hootie).
ok...we've gotta go rock grand rapids now. we'll talk to ya...
 
Friday, May 14th
we're back on the road! everybody's flights got kinda screwed up
coming into detroit yesterday due to weather (pat was directed to
a wrong gate in chicago and missed his connecting flight). we
missed our soundcheck because of it...no big deal. we did an
impromptu soundcheck onstage before firing up the show and ended
up having a really fun time. pat chatted with the audience much
more than usual (must have been jet lag). a few of us had dinner
with our friend chris (nineteen wheels) and his wife krista at
their restaraunt (the woodward avenue brewery in ferndale) before
the show. anyway, today we drive to grand rapids for two radio
shows and then fly to new york for a radio show tomorrow morning
and then fly back to grand rapids for a show tomorrow night.
y'all have a good weekend! we'll talk to you soon.
 
sunday, may 9th
hi.

we just finished a great weekend in texas. we played the starplex
ampitheater in dallas on friday night opening for hootie and the
blowfish. it was a blast (even though the 15,000 seat venue was
only a third full when we went on). saturday we played a festival
in austin and had a great time. we get four days off now before
resuming the tour in detroit on thursday. most of the guys flew
home to san fran this morning to visit friends and family...jimmy
flew to illinois to visit his parents. we're all excited to see
our video on mtv tonight!...we hope y'all dig it. let us know
what you think.
 
friday, may 7th
hi....we just checked into our hotel in dallas after an all-night drive from baton rouge. PLEASE help us make "meet virginia" a big hit, so we can bid farewell to our van and get our sleepy asses into a nice, cozy tour bus soon!...thanks. anyway, we had a great show in baton rouge last night and met some incredibly nice people. the tour is going great so far! "my friend steve" has been our support act for the past few weeks...they're great...check out their cd. we're opening for hootie and the blowfish tonight in dallas. we'll start posting notes on this page more often now that we've figured out how to do it. we've got to head out to a radio show right now. we'll talk to you soon.
 
New Train road diary coming soon..
 
ok. where do we start...
 
we just returned to the bay area for a few days off from touring. it was a great tour, we had a great time, made some great new friends, and are feeling pretty...great. we're going to take some vacations, spend some time with our families and friends, shoot a video for "meet virginia", get some rest and then hit the road again starting april 23rd in charlotte. we've got some really exciting shows that we're looking forward to. we'll be sharing the stage with some incredible bands on some great stages around the country, plus we'll get to headline some of our own shows. "my friend steve" will be our support on most of the headlining dates in the east. it's going to be a good summer...
 
so, our year began in steamboat springs, colorado on january 11th. we were on a headlining tour of the west that took us through colorado, utah, idaho, washington, oregon, california, nevada, arizona and texas. "far too jones" from north carolina was our support for the entire six weeks. we got lucky with the weather, but just about everybody in both bands caught severe colds at some point during the tour.
 
we then stopped off in new orleans to play a gavin show with the black crowes and dovetail joint before kicking off a six week tour with "better than ezra" in jackson, mississippi on february 19th. the ezra tour was a very successful tour for us. a band called "jude" opened all of the shows. we had the middle slot and then ezra. all but three shows on the entire tour were sold-out, so we got some really good exposure playing to very enthusiastic audiences in the south and up and down the entire east coast. "better than ezra" filmed two nights in new york and also the philadelphia show for a live concert video to be released sometime this summer. we (train) had an ABC news crew follow us around for a week or so. they're going to put together some sort of documentary or something that you'll probably see at some point. the tour ended with a crazy show in northampton, massachusetts that was full of pranks, silly-string and spontaneous jams that will forever be etched in our memories (and probably the memories of those of you who were in the audience that night). we'll put some photos up when we get them developed. definately a good time had by all. thank you, "better than ezra" for taking us out with you!
 
we then continued on our way and opened a couple of shows for the pat mcgee band in pennsylvania before closing the tour with headlining shows in cleveland, ann arbor, chicago and indianapolis. we filmed and taped the chicago show for some reason. hopefully we'll all get to see it at some point, because it was a really fun show. "jump little children" from north carolina was our support on these final dates.
 
anyway, that kinda wraps up the year so far (in a very general sorta way). we will try and post notes from the road on this page as often as we can. it gets a bit hectic out there sometimes and it's difficult to keep up with everything, but we'd like for this page to be our outlet to share a few stories, a few photos, and a little slice of our lives with you all.
 
we'll look forward to seeing all of you on the road this summer! keep in touch with us and thank you all SO much for your support. we'll drop a "note from the road" soon. until then...
 
peace,
train