The Blue Band has the extreme good fortune of being part of the day long St. Pat's celebration at the coolest live music place in the Quad Cities, The River Music Experience, 2nd and Main St. in Davenport. (http://www.rivermusicexperience.org/Upcoming-Events/Calendar-of-Events.aspx) The Quads are known for some of the biggest St. Pat's celebrations/parades (yes Rena, I said PARADE) in the nation. I went to Sudlow Jr. High School in Davenport. It's always fun to run into so many of my Davenport Central High classmates when we play there. I'm still trying to talk the RME into letting us play outside (isn't this 75-80 degree weather great??) regardless, the day's festivities start at 10am, we play the ideal GEEEZER Gig hours 7-10pm. This will be the 5th different rhythm section of the year! All of our usual bass playing friends are unavailable, so literally, one of my recent Facebook Friends will be playing bass! In the 80s, Rob Tatro played bass in a band from Waterloo called The Proof. That band had an album out on the Hot Fudge label, so that was the first I'd known of Rob. Fast forward (25 years) to last year's Downtown Festival in West Des Moines and Rob is the bass player in the band right after us! We became Facebook friends and he told me that if I ever needed a bass player to look him up! With The RME so noted for original music bands, I thought we should at least try and do most of the night with our songs, which will make it all the more challenging for a bass player that's never played with us before! Fortunately, The Chief is the drummer and Jeff is becoming really good at looking after rookie bass players! (BTW, Jeff got great news from the guitar doctor in Des Moines, that the Flying V is likely to fly again, just not sure when) Saturday will also be Al's last night as a "regular" in the group. Al has promised me that he really IS going to look after his health while he takes a hiatus from The Blue Band. He has really stepped up the level of musicianship and professionalism in our group, not to mention the choreography. I'm gonna miss those dance steps on I Dig Your Wig. So there it is. The Blue Band, as you've never seen it before and probably never will again, Saturday night, St. Patrick's Day, Lads, Lasses, Leprechauns, green beer and Irish whiskey. What could possibly go wrong?...
And then, nothin'. For three more weeks. The perfect time to hire The Blue Band for that I GOT MY TAX REFUND & IT'S 75 DEGREES SO LET'S HAVE A PARTY IN MY GARAGE spur of the moment kind of wild and crazy thing that you've always wanted to do...
On your way to the RME on Saturday, check out the all Irish musician, St. Patrick's Day edition of my Backtracks radio show (http://iowapublicradio.org/studio-one/backtracks/) including music by Van Morrison, Thin Lizzy (including an interview I did with Lizzy's bass player/singer Phil Lynott in the 70s) The Undertones, Boomtown Rats, The Pogues, Rory Gallagher (including an interview I did with Rory in the 70s) Gilbert O'Sullivan (best Irish name) and many others. The show airs Sat. night 7-10pm. Get the frequency in your area or listen via streamed audio at www.iowapublicradio.org
The Blue Band is truly fortunate to have access to all the audio skills of Phil Maass. His recording/mixing/editing/mastering/producing skills on the Birthday recordings simply made us a better band than we actually were! The recordings sound great. Too bad he doesn't have a gizmo that would automatically insert the correct words that I managed to mess up all too often (hey, I wrote the damn songs, they can go anyway I want them to!) I'm not really sure what we're going to do with these recordings, but it's been really fun listening to that magic sexagenarian evening and some of the old songs that we hadn't done in a decade...
We did manage to add three more dates to the summer tour schedule this week including our annual appearance at our hometown festival Sturgis Falls Days. (http://www.theblueband.com/cal.htm) Thank you for helping spread the True Blue word to town festival entertainment committees, special event coordinators, block party organizers, casinos and local music venues. We can't do it without you...
Occasionally I get asked, "why are you still doing this?" I continue to get inspirations from all kinds of places (these days ya gotta take where ya find it!) Last month, after playing The 503 nightclub in Iowa Falls, wrapped up inside of a few one dollar bills in the tip jar was a handwritten note that said "Thank you for feeding my spirit with your music. I travel a ways because I KNOW you always rock my moment! The energy is worth the fixin of what's broken. Thanks for your wealth shared. The love of my life died suddenly and I've needed you to lift me." That's quite the inspiration, dontchya think? Simply put, I still love what I do. I wish I had more opportunities to do it. Thank you for the inspirations...
Unless there's some big news of that garage party at your place, there probably won't be a Blue Note next week. I heard that the Governor's special traffic enforcement brigade will be out in full force this weekend (gee, the first weekend of the NCAA Basketball Tourney AND St. Patrick's Day on a Saturday, I wonder why?) Be careful on the Blue/green Highway, rub yer washboard tie to the tune of When Irish Eyes Are Callin', it's the perfect weekend for PaddyCAKE and to love yer local Leprechaun. We love YOU. Bob Dorr & The Blue Band
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