Spring 2001
 
Tuesday, July 3rd
sorry for the back to back notes, but we were unable to connect online from amsterdam and didn't want to get too far behind.
 
we're in kristiansand, norway today and man is this a beautiful place! we arrived at midnight last night and it was still daylight. flying over the coastline and into kristiansand was some of the most beautiful country we've ever seen. we just had a wonderful lunch downstairs in our hotel while doing some press and a few radio interviews (our song is already in the top 10 in norway and expected to climb as high as #3 next week!). we saw the fellas from Coldplay, Alanis Morrisette, and Wyclef in the lobby as we were heading back to our rooms. we're all playing a big festival tonight.
 
we spent the last two days in amsterdam where we played a festival yesterday afternoon. it was a good show, but short. we had our evenings free so we all got to do a bit of sightseeing. everybody really enjoyed it. we got to see some of the countryside while driving to rotterdam for the festival yesterday. beautiful. back in amsterdam we all took long walks along the canals and checked out the beautiful buildings and coffee shops. we even discussed the possibility of recording an album there sometime in the future. it's a very clean, inspiring and laid back place to be. we'll definately look forward to returning in october.
 
the day before that was the werchter festival in belgium after which we traveled by bus to amsterdam. that was a really great, well organized festival. we were the first band of the day (being the new band in town and all), but much to our surprise there was a very enthusiastic audience of about 1,000 people in front of our stage when we played. they chanted "more, more, more" when we left the stage, but due to time restrictions we weren't allowed to play another song. we'll make it up to you when we come back in october! it was kind of an interesting backstage scene at that one. our dressing room was between david gray and the black crowes about two trailors down from sting. yes, kate hudson was there.
 
we'll talk to you soon (we didn't learn much dutch).
 
pat, rob, jimmy, scott and charlie
 
Friday, June 29th
we're on a train from paris to brussels today. we have the night off when we get there. we'll be performing at the werchter festival tomorrow (check out this bill: david gray, dandy warhols, ben harper, black crowes, george thorogood, aimee mann, suzanne vega, beck, sting, tool, train and many others) and then we'll drive to amsterdam.
 
we performed in paris last night at a really great club. the crowd was awesome. here's a set list for you: respect, it's about you, meet virginia, something more, ne me quitte pas (a famous french song by jacques brel, which pat sang a capella in french), ramble on, i wish you would, she's on fire, i am, drops of jupiter, heavy, free. encores: getaway, light my fire (they like that one over here). paris is great! we were very busy with interviews and radio stuff, but managed to find an hour to go sightseeing. we saw alot in that hour and will look forward to seeing more when we return in october.
 
the day before that we were in madrid and did an all day photo shoot with a very well know british photographer. we were at different locations throughout the day, so we got to see a bit of the city. we performed there the night before and it too, was a really great show for us. we met eddie grant ("we're gonna rock down to electric avenue") as we were leaving a radio station earlier in the day. everything is continuing to go very well for us over here. the media has been very receptive and we've been getting great revues.
 
the train is about to arrive in brussels, so we'll sign off for now.
 
au revoir,
pat, rob, jimmy, scott and charlie
 
Tuesday, June 26th
we're delayed in the milan airport on our way to madrid today for a bunch of press and a show tonight. the delay means that the one hour we were going to get to spend in our hotel rooms relaxing this afternoon just went away! such is life on the road...
 
anyway, italy is amazing! sicily is truly one of the most beautiful places we have ever been. our hotel was very nice and we had a few hours each day for beaching and scootering around the area. we were there to perform one song as part of a big annual televised concert series called FestivalBar featuring many bands. the event was held in the ruins of an ancient greek coliseum packed with about 5,000 people and was absolutely breathtaking. the erupting mt. etna was the backdrop. words just can't describe how beautiful this place was. there should be some photos in the photo section of our europe travels. after the show we walked the narrow streets to a restaurant where we dined with jessica simpson, her dancers and management (mom and dad) and our local italian sony reps (who treated us very well and are some of the nicest people we've met). it was a really nice dinner and a wonderful atmosphere with a beautiful view. we'll return to italy on july 7th for part two of the FestivalBar series where we'll perform about an hour outside of venice with the likes of destiny's child and ricky martin.
 
on sunday we flew to milan and had the night off. we went for dinner and walked around the duomo area and checked out the cathedral. beautiful. yesterday was a full day of press and photographs followed by soundcheck, a quick dinner (where we ran into a bunch of lovely young americans who were coming to see the show) and a show. every interview we did yesterday asked us about the song we recorded for the Doors tribute album, so we performed "light my fire" as an encore last night and followed it with "whipping boy". it was a good night.
 
we had to wake up very early this morning to get to the airport and now our flight is delayed a bit. we'll go to madrid today and will be taken directly to a radio show and then to the hotel for a bunch of press followed by soundcheck and a show tonight. we're having a great time!
 
it's time to board.
 
ciao,
pat, rob, jimmy, scott and charlie
 
Friday, June 22nd
it's 2AM and we've just arrived in our hotel in sicily. it was an interesting travel day. we left hamburg, germany this morning (friday) at 11AM and had to fly through frankfurt and milan due to an italian airline strike. it was a long day, but now we're in italy!
 
hamburg was great. we spent two days there. the first day we performed for mostly record company people, press and media who were flown in from all parts of the country. there were some fans there as well. we've only just begun to receive radio airplay in germany, so this was mostly a promotional show. there were two fellows who flew in from munich named olli and mario who had heard of us during a recent visit to new york. they brought our record home to germany and persuaded their local radio station to play us and now "drops of jupiter" is one of the priority songs at that station! so...thank you olli and mario for your help and for coming all that way to see us perform. the following day (yesterday) was spent doing interviews, photo sessions and other press. it was a long, productive day that was capped off with a wonderful dinner at a great restaurant with our good friend sharon (our sony music compadre from england who is traveling around europe with us and trying to keep us out of trouble).
 
speaking of trouble...on the flight to sicily from milan this evening, pat was asked to turn off his computer before take-off, which he did. after we're in the air he turns it back on (which is usually ok on every other flight we've ever been on, but apparantly is not ok in italy...a little travel tip for you.) and is payed a visit by the flight captain and asked to turn it off again, which he did. a bit later jimmy puts on his walkman headphones and catches a little shut-eye, but is soon woken up by a flight attendant who tells him to turn it off, which he did. well....we arrive in sicily and depart the plane and are greeted by about 20 italian police officers who take pat and jimmy into custody and hall them off to a secret room on the tarmac, where they were interrogated and let go after about 30 minutes. the police weren't super friendly at first ("no italiano?...hmmm, this is not good for you"), but then they found out that we were a rock band who was here to perform on television and they lightened up a bit. so, that was fun. then we loaded up the gear, stopped off for some italian ice and drove about 45 minutes to our beautiful hotel on the beach. the drive took us around the base of an erupting mt. etna volcano, which is something that you just don't see every day. we could see the red hot lava flowing from the top of the volcano and down the side of the mountain. it was really beautiful. tomorrow we perform one song (drops of jupiter) in front of a live audience for a big television festival show. also performing will be hooverphonic, jessica simpson, dido and a bunch of popular european bands. then we fly to milan on sunday for a day off and a show on monday.
 
that's all for now. we'll write in a few days when we have some more fun stories for you that hopefully won't involve any police officers. until then...
 
chow,
pat, rob, jimmy, scott and charlie
 
Wednesday, June 20
cheers from europe! we've just left london and are on a plane en route to hamburg, germany. last night was our first ever show in london (we played there in january, but it was and industry only show). much to our surprise it was sold-out! we had a great time. there were quite a few americans in the crowd and everybody sang along with the songs and made us feel right at home. it really was more than we expected from our first visit to england. tonight we'll be performing in hamburg in the same neighborhood that the beatles spent many weeks honing their skills before they became "the beatles!". the german sony folks are throwing a pre-show bar-b-que for us. we're pretty excited about this whole european tour and plan to return for more european dates in october after the U.S. matchbox twenty tour. things are going very well for us. everybody over here seems very excited about "drops of jupiter". we've already done interviews with MTV europe and VH1 and have alot of press and radio stuff lined up in every country.
 
on another note...we filmed a VH1 storytellers show in new york on sunday. it's going to be the very first co-storytellers show featuring us and Fuel. it was alot of fun. the Fuel guys are very cool. pat sang "shimmer" with them and they joined us for a version of "ramble on". it seemed to turn out well. you never can tell until they do the editing and the mixing, but it felt good to us. it should air sometime in august or september. we'll let you know.
 
and if you haven't heard...howard stern has been talking a bit about us on his morning radio show. we'll be joining him on the air when we return to the U.S. on july 17th. that should be interesting. we're fans of his, so we're looking forward to it.
 
oh....gotta go...we're landing. we'll talk to you soon.
 
pat, rob, jimmy, scott and charlie
 
Monday, June 11
we're on a bit of a break this week before heading to europe. we haven't written in awhile, so there's lots to talk about...
 
we played our final show of the first leg of the american tour at the warfield in san francisco a few saturdays ago. it was really great for us to return to the bay area and play to a sold-out crowd at such a beautiful venue. we filmed the show for a possible DVD to be released around christmas time. due to the filming, the house lights were dimly lit for the entire show, which was fun for us, because we got to see everybody's faces. we brought in an eight piece orchestra for "drops of jupiter" and "something more" as a special treat. the night was a really great ending to a really great tour for us. the next time we tour the U.S. will be with Matchbox Twenty starting in fargo on july 31st.
 
after the warfield show we all flew home for a week off. we reconvened in los angeles to do the tonight show with jay leno last monday and then flew to mexico city for alot of promotional stuff on tuesday and wednesday and a show on thursday night. it was really exciting to be in a new country and have so much attention paid to us! apparently they've been playing our song on the radio down there and it's starting to do well. we did alot of magazine interviews, latin mtv and some other television shows and visited three or four radio stations during our visit. we stayed in a very nice area of the city and were treated incredibly well by the local sony staff and the mexican people. the show itself was a pleasant surprise (being that we have never played in mexico before). it was packed with a curious and very enthusiastic crowd. many sony representatives from other latin american countries were present as well. we made many new friends and will look forward to returning to mexico and hopefully visiting south america sometime this fall.
 
chart news - "drops of jupiter" (the album) has been released for just over two months now and this past week was certified gold in canada and platinum in the U.S.!
 
movie news - have you seen "the animal" yet? "she's on fire" is featured a few times in that one. we heard it's pretty funny.
 
upcoming - we're flying to new york this weekend to film a VH1 storytellers show, which will feature us and Fuel. we'll let you know when it's scheduled to air. after that we're off to london to begin our first ever european tour, which will be immediately followed by a trip to australia. check out our tour dates page for the shows and ticket info.
 
from the heart - we're very fortunate to have all of these great things happening to us and we're excited that more and more people all over the world are discovering our music. thank you all for being a part of this with us. we'll have our computer with us while we're out of the country, so keep in touch and we'll try and do the same via this page. oh, and email your friends in europe and australia and tell them to come see us!
 
su amigos,
pat, rob, jimmy, scott and charlie
 
Thursday, May 24
we just arrived in Vancouver for a show tonight. it's a beautiful day here and a beautiful city. we flew in from Montreal, where we played to a sold-out, mostly French speaking crowd last night. it was a really great show for us and a warm, enthusiastic crowd that sang right along with us (in broken English). it was Five For Fighting's last show with us. we'll miss those guys. they're a great band and super nice fellows. we wish them the best of luck with their new single and thank them for coming out with us. pat jokingly told john (FFF's singer) to keep in touch with us as long as they were doing well and not to bother if things went sour for them. john's reply: "thanks Pete, i'll do that". touche! anyway, enough about them. buy their record. it's good. just make sure that you buy ours first! the two nights before were spent in ottawa and were very good shows as well. canada is treating us very well this time around. we've done alot of television and radio stuff this week and the record is selling very well up here. the song, "drops of jupiter", is #3 in the country this week and the #1 non-french song in quebec. last sunday was the last time that we were in the states in providence, rhode island. it's really beautiful there, too, by the way. we had a really great day there and a wonderful dinner before the show. the show was good, too. that was bonnie's 100th, so we let her choose the encores. she chose "blind" and "sweet rain". we played them for her and haven't seen her since! we're assuming that it's because we're in canada and not because we sucked!
 
anyway, we're heading to san francisco after tonights show. we're very excited to return to the bay area. you might see us around town tomorrow filming stuff for the DVD movie. if you do, run up to us like a crazed fan and make us look good for the movie. we'd appreciate that.
 
then we're taking a week off, doing leno (with a very cool animated movie backdrop), heading to mexico, europe and then australia. we'll be back in the states for the matchbox twenty dates, which are selling out really quickly (we're hoping that it's train fans getting all of the good seats!). we'll see you all soon.
 
take care.
pat, rob, jimmy, scott and charlie
 
Sunday, May 20th
another week has rolled on by and we've just noticed that we misspelled "wear" in our last posting! that's it...we quit!!
 
anyway, we're in providence today. it should be a good show tonight (we were just kidding about the "quitting" thing). yesterday we were in washington D.C.. there were about 40,000 people in front of us when we played. we had a great time. and then we got to watch the Go-Go's! it was a good day. friday we were at an alternative radio festival outside of pittsburgh. we played an early, short set. we'll talk more about it later. or maybe not. chicago was before that and was good as usual. chicago is always good for us. we can't remember ever having a bad show in that city. and to play at the riviera and sell it out was really special for us. we hope you all enjoyed that one as much as we did. oh, and pontiac, michigan was the night before chicago and they really showed us the love, too! it seems that our past visits to the detroit area have always been on a day when the redwings played a playoff game and nobody came to see us. but not this time. sold-out and really fun once the doors opened and y'all could get out of the rain. and earlier that day we had a first...some radio contest winners got to go bowling with train! yep. we bowled. badly. what else...toronto last sunday. our first ever packed canadian show where the crowd actually knew who we were and sang along and all. it was exciting for us. apparantly our record is just about gold in canada. we'll be heading there tomorrow for two sold-out shows in ottawa, a show in montreal and one in vancouver. we're looking forward to it.
 
then we head to san francisco to film our DVD movie. three of the film crew joined us in D.C. yesterday and rode on the bus with us to providence to get some footage. they're actually filming us right now as we're writing this on the bus outside the venue.
 
one last thing...our friend bonnie will be seeing her 100th train show tonight in providence! congratulations bonnie...you crazy gal you. we love you! sometimes we get confused and think that we're actually following you around the country!
 
ok...gotta go get some breakfast with the movie guys. we'll talk to you soon.
 
pat, rob, jimmy, scott and charlie
 
Saturday, May 12
we're in clifton park, new york today for a show tonight. we had an incredibly busy week. we did alot of radio stuff and interviews and just plain running around. thus the lack of attention to this page. but, we're back. no radio today. so, let's see if we can sum up the week in review...
 
last night - philadelphia - sold-out, mellow crowd, but a nice vibe and a good show (we hope), two encores which included "let it roll" and aerosmith's "last child". thursday night - hartford - the only not sold-out show of the tour so far! but, it was still packed with a very enthusiastic crowd and we had a great time. one encore, which included the who's "my generation". it really was a fun show. wednesday we were in boston at the paradise theater - we had a really long day of radio interviews and were pretty tired, but it was still a really fun show for us (and hopefully them). tuesday - a day off in wilmington, delaware - laundry. monday we were in charlotte for a sweaty, sold-out show that was an all around good vibe sorta thing. we were feeling the love that night. we had a sound-check party for some radio contest winners and played "blind" for the first time in about two years. it felt really good. don't be surprised if that one turns up in a show sometime soon. and finally, charleston on sunday - a daytime festival with collective soul, five for fighting, crazytown, american hi-fi and sister hazel. crazy! that crowd was there to have a good time and damned if they didn't. it was one of those crowd-surfin', water bottle tossin', beer drinkin', bra throwin' crowds. enough said. it was good to see some of our friends in sister hazel and collective soul. they sounded great as usual.
 
oh, we switched buses yesterday! this new one is MUCH nicer than the big white thing we've been on for the past three weeks. it's silver and black on the outside and nice and cozy mahogany vibe on the inside. DVD player and all. we're a happy bunch. we get to stay on this bus through the matchbox twenty tour. oh, did we say "matchbox twenty tour"?! yep, it's official. you can check out our website or theirs (preferably ours) for the dates. it starts july 31st in fargo, north dakota and will take us around the US and Canada for about eight weeks. we'll be visiting many places that we didn't get to visit on this current tour. it's going to be a great tour. we'll be the middle band ( the opener will be announced soon) and have been told that we'll get to play a decent amount of time each night. don't wait to get your tickets, because we want all of the train fans right down in front! no train fans on the lawn! it's our first outdoor amphitheater tour and we plan on having a great time, so please come out and see us in these beautiful venues. those matchbox twenty guys aren't bad, either!
 
and for you folks in mexico, europe and australia - tour dates for june and july will start popping up on our website very shortly. it's our first tour of europe. we'll be visiting england, germany, france, spain, belgium, sweden, norway, denmark and italy on this trip...we're excited and are looking forward to playing our music for some new faces, so come out and see what we're all about. we won't bite....hard.
 
hey, you all know bonnie, right? that girl has been following us around just about everywhere! there are alot of people who go to four, five, maybe seven or eight shows in a row, but bonnie....the chili cook-off in washington D.C. will be her 100th train show! congratulations, bonnie. we keep waiting for her to ask us to split her therapist bills with her. you know it's funny, she's always in the front row and never sings along with the crowd at the shows...you'd think she would know the words to our songs by now. oh well. maybe she's just into the light show.
 
what else...oh, scott has a really ugly blister on his finger from drumming his little heart out every night. we're very close to his hometown today, so he's looking forward to the show tonight. hope that thing on his finger doesn't explode! yuck. where your raincoats! everybody else is doing great. oh, have you people in san francisco heard that we'll be filming a DVD movie at the warfield show? yep. we'll be shooting alot of additional footage in and around the bay area that weekend. re-visiting some of our old haunts and all. we hired a great director. it should be a pretty cool concert movie. we wanted to capture where the band is at this point of our careers just in case we all get wiped out by a giant exploding blister and can't play anymore.
 
talk to you later,
pat, rob, jimmy, scott and charlie
 
Sunday, May 6
today we're in charleston, south carolina to play an outdoor festival show with some friends of ours. there are about seven tour buses all lined up backstage (the show is in a baseball field) containing collective soul, crazytown, five for fighting, our lady peace, sister hazel, us and a few others. it's a nice vibe and a beautiful day for a rock show. speaking of rock shows....
 
last night we performed at atlanta's music midtown festival in front of about 50,000 people. it was pretty incredible. and the night before was the nashville riverstages in front of about 30,000. that was a pretty magical show, too. a big ole riverboat passed right behind us (the stage was on the water's edge) during "mississippi". it was a beautiful night. we played with the wallflowers both nights. we played first in nashville, they played first in atlanta. the beautiful miss Fleming McWilliams (who sang on our album) joined us onstage in nashville for "mississippi".
 
anyway, these festivals are fun and all...we see alot of our friends in other bands and play in front of alot of people, but after today we're all feeling ready to get back to our own little tour thing with five for fighting. it's kinda hectic doing these festivals. no soundcheck, borrowed lights, limited show times. does it sound like we're complaining?! really, we're not! we're very thankful to be invited to these big events...it's just crazy, that's all.
 
we'll talk to you soon. have a good week as we will...looking forward to charlotte, boston, clifton park, toronto, hartford and wherever else we're going this week. see ya.
 
pat, rob, jimmy, scott and charlie
 
Wednesday, May 2
we're in birmingham, alabama tonight for the second of two sold-out shows. last night was awesome. the crowd made us feel like we were at home, as they always do. the night before we were in jackson, mississippi for a very sweaty show. we had lunch that day at a mexican restaurant and were impressed with the mariachi band, so we invited them to come down and introduce us and play a song before we got started. the crowd loved it! after the show, pat gave the shirt he was wearing to a fan who promised to deliver it back to him in san francisco on the last date of the tour. he also gave away a dove candle that looked like the dove the boy is holding on the album cover to a guy in austin the other night. anyway, we've gotta run off to a radio show. just wanted to drop a quick hello. we have the day off in nashville tomorrow. anybody got any suggestions for us? our laundry is being taken care of today, so we're kinda free. talk to you later.
 
pat, rob, jimmy, scott and charlie
 
Sunday, April 29
we have the afternoon off in dallas today. we just arrived at our hotel. we flew in from indianapolis where we played a show last night at butler university. it was a really fun show, too! a mini-amphitheater that holds about 4,000 and it was totally packed with a very enthusiastic crowd. there was a big space between the stage and the seats, so two songs into the show pat asked everybody to move up close to the stage, which caused a panic with the security guys, but it all worked out. nobody was hurt too bad. we had a really fun show in dallas the night before. hot and sticky...texas style. we head to jackson tonight for a show tomorrow and then we're off to birmingham for two nights. it should be a good week.
 
let's see....scott got over his ear infection and is back to his "normal" self. rob's suitcase got crushed in the equipment truck today - he's mad. charlie and jimmy went shopping in dallas the other day and bought some groovy new stage duds. pat's upset because he has to do a japanese phone interview tonight at 8 on his day off. and little buddy walked all around the indianapolis airport yesterday with a femine product stuck to his backpack. the things we'll do for entertainment!
 
that's about all for now. all is good. thanks to bob schneider (or mr. bullock as his band mates like to refer to him) for being so cool and entertaining our audience on the first leg of the tour. he did a great job and we wish him the best. we're looking forward to having five for fighting out with us starting this week in birmingham. we'll talk to you soon.
 
pat, rob, jimmy, scott and charlie
 
Wednesday, April 25
we're in oklahoma city today for a day off. we're en route to austin, texas for a sold-out show tomorrow night. we've got a mall, a laundromat and a border's book store next to our hotel today, so everybody is pretty happy. not to mention that we had another amazing week with our record. we're moving back up the charts to #14 this week and the single is climbing it's way up. "drops of jupiter" has been #1 at AAA radio format for seven weeks in a row now!
 
anyway, wow!...what a great show we had in denver last night! the band and the crowd were just completely in sync. the energy that we felt in that room was just awesome. we played the longest show of the tour so far. scott has a really bad ear infection and we weren't even sure if he could play last night, but he pulled through in a big way. he just couldn't perform a second encore, though, so the rest of us came back out and played an acoustic version of "homesick". the crowd sang every word with us. pat was given a beaded necklace a few shows back and brought it onstage with him last night and offered it to somebody in the crowd that would have to promise to somehow get that same necklace back up to the stage in san francisco on the final night of the U.S. tour. he seemed pretty confident that he gave it to the right girl. we'll see. a few other gals apparently associated the beads with the whole mardis gras thing and we thank you all for that!
 
ok. we're off to the mall! talk to you soon.
 
pat, rob, jimmy, scott and charlie
 
Friday, April 20
we're in phoenix today. we played LA last night and our beloved petaluma the night before. we're off to a good start. the shows are getting better each night and we've been slipping in two to four different songs each night, which is fun for us and those following us around. we played "getaway" for the first time ever in petaluma and liked it, so we played it again in LA last night. we're talking about playing "whipping boy" tonight in phoenix.
 
hey...starwatch....last night at the house of blues in LA....Gene Simmons, Bob Saget and the beautiful Miss Sandra Bullock. only in LA.
 
talk to you soon.
 
pat, rob, jimmy, scott and charlie
 
Tuesday, April 17
we're in the bay area today for some live radio shows and a sold-out show in petaluma tomorrow night. it's really nice to be back here. most of us don't live here anymore and haven't been here since our last show at the fillmore in november. you forget how beautiful it is.
 
anyway, the tour is in full swing. we started out in portland on friday night and seattle on saturday. both shows were with shawn colvin and john hiatt. we met them both and got to be quite friendly with shawn. she fit right in with our humor and lack thereof. she even took requests from us for the seattle show. a class act, that one. without giving away our entire set-list (we want it to be a surprise!), we switched it up a bit both nights, playing "if you leave" and "eggplant" in portland while opting for "let it roll" and "something more" in seattle. this tour will be fun for us now that we have two albums to draw from. so then we flew across the country to new york to perform on the rosie o'donnell show monday. did you see us? we thought it was pretty good. that show is taped on the same floor as saturday night live, so we got to check out the snl sets and stuff. then we went over to mtv studios and taped some stuff for mtv news and other segments and hopped back on a plane across the country to oakland. now we're in our tour bus on our way to the first radio show of the day.
 
we're finding it hard to get online as much as usual while we're out here and have missed reading the message board and emails the past few days. we plan on checking all of that out tomorrow morning while we're in our hotel for a few hours. be patient with us on the letter answering.
 
let's see...oh, did you hear that our record has already shipped gold this past week?! the single has been #1 on one of those charts for six weeks in a row now! yep, thanks. oh, and did you hear that there are still tickets left for the birmingham shows?! what's up with that?!! we miss you - you no miss us? c'mon birmingham...let's party! ok, so this week we're on the left coast in petaluma, LA, phoenix and san diego (all sold-out we believe). it's going to be a good week! we'll see you at the shows.
 
pat, rob, jimmy, scott and charlie
 
Thursday, April 12
hey there. we're in LA for the craig kilborn show today. we'll be doing a stipped down version of "jupiter" and probably one other song for posible future airing. we did the famous rick dees morning show on KISS FM this morning. it's time to get back on the road! did you hear that we'll be doing the rosie o'donnell show on monday? we hear that she won't be there, though. she had surgery on her hand or something. we were hoping to meet her and wish her a speedy recovery...we'll see you next time, rosie. anyway, tomorrow we fly to portland to meet up with our crew (who have been doing pre-production work this week in the bay area) and our tour bus. we'll play our first official show of the tour tomorrow night in portland. we're all really looking forward to getting back out there and playing the new songs (and the old ones, too). we were told that all of the shows are selling really well (many are already sold-out!), which makes even more excited. we've also got some great support acts touring with us this time around. bob schneider will be starting out with us through jackson, five for fighting will join us in birmingham for the east coast dates and then the pat mcgee band will do some shows with us at the end of the tour. all very good bands worth showing up early for.
 
anyway, we've got to head over to the CBS studios for soundcheck right now. we'll see you out there on the road and will try and post notes up as often as we can. oh, and for those of you who might be concerned with our drop in the billboard top 200...first of all, we were surprised and excited to enter at #6! and we were told that it's a natural thing to drop for a few weeks and then hopefully climb back up after the tour and video and sales all kick in. whatever...we were #6 in the country for a whole damn week! can't take that away from us...thank you all.
 
we spent yesterday in a recording studio in LA recording an acoustic version of "ramble on". don't be surprised if it turns up on a record sometime soon. also, we were thinking of learning a few more cover tunes for the tour: "ain't talkin' 'bout love" by van halen and elton john's "daniel". discuss....
 
see ya,
pat, rob, jimmy, scott and charlie
 
Monday, March 30th
hi everyone. did you see us on letterman? to tell you the truth, we've been so extremely busy in new york that we haven't even had time to get online and check the website. we're sitting in the airport right now waiting to board a plane to toronto, so we thought we'd drop a line. we're hoping our letterman appearance was good! it all happens so fast. from the time you get in the elevator to go downstairs to the stage, perform, get back in the elevator and go back to the dressing room, it's a total of about 8 minutes. it's pretty much a blur. we watched it later that night, though (the show tapes at 5:30) and thought it looked and sounded pretty good. we're very critical of ourselves. the orchestra was great! paul shaeffer was very cool. some of the late night band came up to our dressing room after the show to congratulate us on the song and the performance of it. they made a point of telling us that they never do that. that was pretty nice of them to do. the only time we met dave was onstage after the performance. it's really cold in that studio!
 
anyway, tuesday felt like christmas to us with the release of our second CD. we were pretty excited about the whole deal. and although we haven't read the website yet (we're hoping to have an hour tomorrow in toronto to do that), we did download hundreds and hundreds of letters from you all and it was just overwhelming stuff for us to read! thank you all so much!! we can't wait to get out on the road and see everybody! please don't be annoyed if we don't respond right away, because the amount of mail pouring in is just incredible and all of the sudden we've gotten very busy. and thanks to all of you, it sounds like we'll remain very busy for awhile! speaking of which, we've got a plane to catch.
 
a quick shout out to those who attended the fan appreciation shows in chicago and new york this week...we had a great time at both. we'll hope to see you all at the "real" show when we come back through. and for those of you in europe, japan, australia and mexico....we're coming!!! we'll see you this summer. and thanks to all of you who are buying up tickets to see us in the united states. many of the shows have sold-out already and it's looking like the others will as well. Uwho? just kidding. you probably couldn't get tickets to their sold-out tour, so you're coming to see us instead. that's ok. we're cool with that. whew....thanks!
 
boarding rows 35 and higher....gotta go. keep buying those records, so we can fly first class!
 
pat, rob, jimmy, scott and charlie
 
p.s. - jeff (soundguy extraordinaire) says to tell his mother hello (he's doing just fine!) and we're sorry to report that "little buddy" has been fired (just kidding mom and dad!).