Thank You, Charlotte and Knoxville. Sorry, Lexington.

Apologies to Lexington fans for the Sunday gig being canceled at the last minute. There was some sort of problem with the venue's permit to sell alcohol on Sundays. So it wasn't our fault, but we're sorry anyway. We'll be back in Lexington real soon.

Overall, though, the weekend was pretty positive. We enjoyed having very receptive crowds in Charlotte and Knoxville, both of which we played for the first time. In many ways, it's hard to look forward to playing a new city. No matter how much promotion you do, there's a good chance you'll be playing to an empty venue. Luckily, we had the pleasure of not only performing in front of people in both cities, but people who were genuinely into what we were doing. We sold a bunch of CDs, got a bunch of names on our mailing list, had a good time, and even made some money. Self-supported touring bands know that sometimes it's tough just to break even after paying for gas and other expenses. If you can come away with a decent amount of money on top that, it's icing on the cake.

We knew the gig at Preservation Pub in Knoxville was going to be especially interesting because Dave would be absent. This was a gig we had booked months ago when Will was still with us, and Dave, who joined the group last month, already had a prior commitment for that date that couldn't be changed. So Knoxville got treated to the Soulive-esque version of Paradigm, with me playing left hand bass. I was a little worried, not because of the technical aspect of playing bass lines, but because it could sound thin and awkward without a nice, fat bottom end sound, and none of the keyboards I own seemed right for the job. John's mother owns a Roland XV-88, a keyboard I'm not familiar with, and she was willing to let me use it (thanks again, Mrs. Epley!), but since we wouldn't be meeting up with John's family until we got to Knoxville, I didn't have the benefit of trying it out until we showed up for the gig. I didn't know what exactly to expect, bu the XV-88 ended up working great. With a little tweaking, I was able to get a good bass sound with some thump to it. It turned out to be a fun night. I was forced to take a new, focused approach to our songs, which was refreshing experience.

I own a pretty nice digital camera that usually ends up sitting at home because, for whatever reason, I always forget that I have it. Usually, it's Myron asking me if I brought my camera while en route, at which point I have to slap my forehead in stupidity. This time, I brought my camera but spaced out on taking any pictures, save for the one shot of us packing up the van. At least I know photography is one of those things in life that I'm quite bad at. Not everybody knows their own weaknesses. If you hired me to shoot your wedding, you'd probably end up with a couple random shots of the church organ. Where are the pictures of the bride and groom? "Ummm..." I need to get better with this whole picture thing. Myron brought his video camera as well, but I don't remember seeing him use it, so at least I wasn't the only space cadet in the band this weekend. Gathering more visual data from our trips will our new year's resolution, I suppose. We hope to get back to both cities in the near future. Look for a recording of our Charlotte show to turn up on the Archive fairly soon.