Diary Archives
08.23.2006
Final Diary Entry
Our final leg of the year long Life in Slow Motion tour started with our bass player Robbie's Dad being hospitalized for what the doctors said would be his final time.
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06.15.2006
European Festivals/South Africa
We got back together to rehearse and perform a radio show at the Church at the end of May, but our bass player and his wife had their first child, Finn Malone, on the 21st and Robbie needed to stay home.
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05.08.2006
Byron Bay/New Zealand
Our first show in Australia was the Byron Bay Blues and Roots Festival - a really cool hippie festival held over five days in this amazing part of the country.
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03.11.2006
USA Tour
We started March 1st at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. We've played here before and remembered it fondly. Like the Fox in Detroit, this is an amazing looking and sounding venue.
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02.07.2006
European Tour
2006 began for the band with a couple days rehearsal in the Church where we learned a few new songs and ran over the others. Everyone was in top form and looking forward to our European tour.
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12.13.2005
UK Tour
Manchester Evening News Arena...we got in to Manchester on the Saturday of George Best's funeral. Robbie threw his bag in his room and got a taxi to Man United game...
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12.05.2005
Start of the UK Tour
Dave's larangytis brought our American tour to a screeching halt back in October and the healing process was slow.
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10.16.2005
Toronto, Washington D.C. and New York City
We started our latest tour in Toronto, two months to the day after our last show in Toronto.
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09.26.2005
UK Tour
So this has to be the shortest tour I've ever been on. It lasted six days! Can you really call it a tour if it's less than a week? Maybe it should be called a leg.
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09.16.2005
Promo, TV Tapings and the Record's Release
We have been taping a lot of television shows since getting back from America last month.
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08.30.2005
Promo Tour Wrap Up
From Boulder Colorado we flew in to Seattle for a day off which also happened to be Clune's Birthday. Dave had something special planned, we were told to meet at the pier at two in the afternoon.
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08.16.2005
Boulder Colorado
Boulder Colorado is the site of the long running, annual "Triple A" Radio Convention. This was the original show that this tour was built around.
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08.05.2005
The Tour Begins
So I am in the back lounge of our bus, driving from Boston to Philladelphia overnight. Our show at the Avalon tonight went really well, for everyone except Dave.
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07.13.2005
Rehearsals in North London
My name is David Nolte and I'm the guitar player in David Gray's band. Dave has asked me to update his website weekly in the form of a tour journal which will start today.
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Diary Entry
USA Tour
Saturday, March 11, 2006
We started March 1st at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. We've played here before and remembered it fondly. Like the Fox in Detroit, this is an amazing looking and sounding venue. The crowd were great, it was the perfect way to kick off the tour.
The next night was the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville...the original home of the Grand Ole Opry. Dave and Clune had played here years ago as the support act for Shawn Colvin and they've been talking about it ever since. This was one of those special gigs we'll never forget. Like the Glasgow show last summer or the Copenhagen show last month, this show was as good as it could have been. The crowd were really with us from the start and sometimes it felt like they were right on top of us. Their reactions drowned out the music a couple times...it was great, really great. Dave threw in an acoustic section where he played The Light of all songs. He hasn't played that one in years. He also did Long Black Veil for Johnny Cash. It was the perfect song to play at the Ryman.
Earlier in the day Dave purchased a big acoustic baritone guitar from the shop across the alley from the gig. Last time we were in Nashville he'd bought a mini 12 string acoustic from the same place. The baritone sounds great and he's using it every chance he gets.
The third show was in Cleveland followed by Milwaukee, Indianapolis and Cincinatti. All nice theatres, they all went really well, every crowd really enthusiastic and very familiar with the songs from the new record, more than the Europeans were. The reaction we've gotten so far has inspired Dave to throw in new songs and extend or change the others. We've got two new songs, Alive and Far From Here that we've been doing a lot recently, also Dave's added a few new covers to the set.
Most of these shows are to make up for the shows postponed last fall. Dave's voice is defintely better and holding up just fine this time around. We're in Texas making our way west...more next week.
