This past Saturday was another adventure with The True Willie Band. We played a show called the "Merle and Willie Tour Tribute" at the Trinity County Fairgrounds in Hayfork CA.
Three of Merle's "Strangers" band work together calling themselves The Haggard Connection. Scott Joss, Doug Colosio, and Jeff Ingraham had toured with Merle for years. The guitar player is Eric but I forgot his last name. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.
The adventure started late Friday night when I picked up John from his gig at The Ranch.
John works with The Arnie Newman Band regularly. You might also notice Daniel (fiddle) on stage with them tonight. Daniel will be doing a few gigs with Arnie this summer.
Our flight was leaving at 6am on Saturday morning. LAX always recommends arriving two hours before departure in order to have plenty of time to park, get through security, etc. On top of that, this was the weekend that a bunch of airlines were moving to different terminals. This was really going to be a cluster so the airline recommended arriving three hours early. We decided to just go to the airport from John's gig. Then we'd have plenty of time to work out any problems.
John took some time to show his Saturday night sub how his rig worked, then we loaded up his gear into my van and made our way to the LAX WallyPark. It's cheaper to park off site than right in the LAX loop.
We got some coffee from the nice ladies in the WallyPark lounge and took the shuttle over to our departure terminal. United was one of the few carries that was not moving this weekend. We were in the terminal just after 3am.
Unfortunately, the ticket counter didn't open until 4:30am. I had already printed our boarding passes so all we had to do was check our bags. We just did some people watching and hung out in the terminal like all the other early arrivers. When the counter opened up we checked our instruments and boarded the plane. John sat behind me and didn't flick my ear once. He's such a good guy.
Unfortunately, just 10 minutes before we boarded our plane to San Francisco I got a text from United saying that our connecting flight to Redding had been canceled. The text said "air traffic control" issues. I also heard that the wind at Redding may have been too strong and the runway was being worked on. Either way, we made our way to SFO and planned to make up the rest as we went along.
At SFO we checked with United customer service. They were trying to hire a bus to take those passengers with tickets to Redding. They needed ten passengers in order to procure a bus. I think they had enough passengers but it was not going to arrive in time for us to make our scheduled sound check. So I decided to rent a car. By the time we got down to baggage claim our instruments had already been picked up and put into storage. The nice baggage lady called to have them fetched.
Then we hopped on the blue train and made our way to the car rental counter.
The nice Avis lady gave us a little bit of a break on the rental, a cute mid-sized Mazda, enough to hold all of our instruments and luggage.
So we hit the road for a four and a half hour drive from San Francisco to Hayfork. We flew an hour and a half to drive four. It's normally a 40 minute flight to Redding from SFO. From Redding to Hayfork is less than an hour drive.
We got to drive over the Bay Bridge. Here we are about to enter it on Hwy 101.
You don't have to pay the toll going in this direction, only coming back the other way. I think that's because going in this direction you are on the lower level of the bridge and the view stinks.
Coming out on the other side is a little bit more scenic after the road splits again.
We also crossed the Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge over the Carquinez Strait, part of the bay area waters.
Unfortunately this was a toll bridge but you didn't have to pay until you crossed over. Five dollars just to cross the bridge. What a racket.
We got a good piece down the road and John decided he was hungry enough to buy lunch. We made a quick stop at Carl's Jr. I had a beer batter fish sandwich and more coffee. I guess this is what we call in the business, "road food".
Then we hit Interstage 5 north and most of the road was like this. This is why cruise control was invented.
You know you're really in farm country when you see a big tractor on the freeway.
Instead of driving all the way to Redding we took a "short cut" on Hwy 36. It was a very scenic curvy road to Hayfork.
Wow, that's twenty pictures and we're not even at the gig yet. Hopefully we'll get there soon.
Continuing the road trip leg of this adventure, I decided to take a short cut from our short cut and take a road called Wildwood Road. It was nineteen miles of curvier, narrower road to Hayfork. Did you hear a banjo?
Yay! We finally made it to beautiful Hayfork California.
One of the first things we saw was us on the marquee at the local storage facility.
We pulled into the place and asked for direction to the fairgrounds. We were told, "just follow the road around the curve, past the Tule Creek bridge, and you'll see the sign."
We were on the sign too.
We made our way to the stage and I found my backline, a cute little digital Ampeg combo. I liked it.
This is the same sound system Merle used to use. Yes, it's heavy and old school but Merle's sound guy, Loren Kemper, says he's never had to replace a piece of gear.
Here's a shot from out front.
Here's a shot from the stage.
This is Merle's sound man, Loren Kemper, doing his thing. He was also running the monitors from the FOH so he's got his work cut out for him.
Loren said he'd been trying to set up his gear for two days but it's been raining. The weather cleared this morning so everyone was humping hard to get everything going. In fact, they weren't really ready to sound check at 2pm like originally scheduled. That's OK. John and I could go to our room and take a nap. By now John and I had been up for over 30 hours. Here's a couple of pictures of the surrounding area before we leave.
We decide to grab a sandwich and a drink from our green room before we go to the motel.
Since we didn't know where the motel was we stopped in the neighborhood water hole to ask directions. Look, there we are on the marquee again. We would come back here after the show for a nightcap.
We were told, "Go back down the road until you see the big blue buildings, then get ready to make a left turn where you see the sign for the Timberjack Lodge." We found it just fine. Here's the office. The innkeeper just handed us our keys, told us the wifi password, and said, "Y'all enjoy your stay. Let me know if you need anything." Didn't even have to sign the register.
There are two buildings with six rooms each, very rustic, very charming, with most of the comforts of home. I enjoyed my stay.
I stayed in room number four. No fancy automatic curtains or lights here. But there was a coffee maker, a fridge, a little TV, wifi, and a private bath. I don't need much more.
After a nap and a shower we were back at the venue for our sound check. Here's True Willie and Mike getting tuned up.
Dave is ready to give the sound man some kick drum.
Mike gives me a smile while True Willie and Scott Joss chat a bit. It was a very laid back sound check.
As we continue to sound check in between everyone's conversations and visitation, I snap a picture of Scott Joss with True Willie. Scott sang all of Merle's songs for their tribute. He plays a terrific fiddle too.
Doug Colosio helps John get the keyboard programmed properly. Doug's gear is so well used that the lettering is worn off the buttons.
Here is Doug with True Willie and Jeff Ingraham, Merle's tour drummer for a long time. Jeff played so quietly but with such intensity and such great meter that you didn't miss the volume.
Doug asked me about my hairdresser. He was serious.
Here's another of Scott and True Willie before The Haggard Connection takes the stage.
I also wanted a selfie with Scott just for bragging rights.
The Haggard Connection took the stage and were consummate pros.
As I mentioned, the crowd size was a little disappointing. I heard Loren and his crew talking about the bad scheduling. There were two local high school proms, a rodeo in Redding, the cold turn in the weather, and a somewhat lackluster promotional effort. But the crowd that was there was really into it.
Doug played left hand bass on his keyboards. He did a great job but I so wanted to get up there and help him out.
As these guys were nearing the end of their set I wandered back to our spacious green room.
It was warm and comfortable. But I couldn't stay long or else I'd get sleepy. Remember, I've had only about an hour sleep in the last thirty six after driving and flying and driving some more. So I walk back out into the crisp air to listen to some more classic country music.
Ernie was an excellent guitar player, just enough tasty twang on his Tele to be authentic.
Then it was time for True Willie to take the stage. We hustled right on and began the show before it got any colder.
I guess Dave's hat kept him warm in his short sleeve shirt.
The crowd stayed and enjoyed the show. We even had a few dancers up in front of the stage.
As Merle Haggard used to do when he opened for Willie Nelson, Scott came up and sang a couple of duets with True Willie.
Before we knew it, it was all over. Loren, Lou, Charles, and the rest of the crew start striking the stage.
As the crew struck the stage all of the food vendors came to the stage and asked what we wanted for supper. But first we visited the adult beverage booth and enjoyed a drink called a 'Hayfork Mule'. It was tasty, refreshing, and potent. It was made with a local product, Curvy Roads Hard Ginger (ginger wine) and lemonade and stuff. This is Evan, our vintner. He gave me a bottle. Nice fellow.
Then the food vendors brought our supper to the green room. I enjoyed a tasty chicken burrito from Terry.
Some of the guys had some hearty looking double cheeseburgers.
And we all enjoyed the pizza. The pizza was really good.
Then we stopped by the local neighborhood bar for a nightcap.
Everyone we met there was friendly and glad we came all the way out to play for them. It was truly a small town full of big hearts. A nice young man named Tim bought our round. Mighty neighborly folks around here.
We were up and on the road at 7am the next morning. The five hours of sleep that I had that night left me feeling almost human. When I opened the door to my room I saw Dave all bright eyed and bushy tailed. How does he do that?
Roger and Dave load up their rental car. John was running late so Roger, Dave, and Mike left without us.
I knew how to get to Redding, just not to the airport. I'm glad we have GPS on our phones these days. We drove by the lovely Whiskeytown Lake. It's a nice large lake with quite a lot of boating.
We got to the Redding airport right behind Roger and the gang. They were still unloading their car when we pulled up behind them. This is the Redding airport lobby. It was very nice for such a small airport.
Behind the glass is the boarding area. But first Mike and I get our boarding passes and check our instruments at the counter.
After we pay our baggage fee we were asked to carry our gear over to the TSA inspection room around the corner. They don't need no conveyor belt here. These young folks are busy making sure our gear is fit to travel. I'm not sure if this young TSA agent has ever seen a weapon of such musical destruction as a six string bass.
The mountains in the distance still have a lot of snow on them. This was taken in the boarding area. I asked if I could walk out on the tarmac to take some clearer pictures but was told it's a restricted area.
Then we heard the announcement. Our flight was being delayed because of weather (fog) at San Francisco airport. The plane was going to try to leave an hour later. We were worried about making our connecting flights at SFO so we could get home at a decent hour. Roger was supposed to go to the Ducks game that evening and didn't want to miss it.
But then about forty five minutes later we were told that the fog had cleared and we were ready to board. As we walked out on the tarmac to the plane I snapped a few more pictures of the surrounding mountains. I think here we are looking at Crater Peak on the left and Lassen Peak on the right.
I'll try a close-up of Lassen Peak.
This was a sporty little regional jet, a Canadair CRJ200.
As I walked up the ramp I saw Mt. Shasta off in the distance, brilliant white on the horizon.
John and I settle in for the 40 minute flight.
As we climb to altitude we see Whiskeytown Lake below us, the lake we drove by earlier on our way to the airport.
As we make our turn to SFO we can see all the snowpack.
We're not quite done with the road food. On the plane for breakfast I enjoyed some coffee and a Stroopwafel.
What's a Stroopwafel? It's a soft, toasted waffle filled with caramel, cinnamon, and real bourbon vanilla. It was quite tasty, and very thin.
Here's the San Mateo bridge as we make our final into SFO.
If you've ever flown into SFO you know that the runway goes all the way down to the water, practically.
We deplane onto the tarmac and hurry to the terminal to make sure we can fly home on time.
I met this funny looking character while walking through SFO to my gate.
We make it to the gate of our connecting flight home with plenty of time. Since we are bushed, John and I decide to check our carry-on bag at the gate. When you check your bag at the gate you don't have to pay the $25 baggage fee. Can you guess which bag is mine?
Our adventure continued right up until the end of the trip. As we were landing at LAX it seemed to be taking a long time. As soon as we touched down the pilot hit the throttle, turned off the air brakes, and we were in the air again. He did a touch-and-go! It was the first time that has happened to me on a plane this size, a 737. My first thought was that the pilot just overshot the runway and knew he wouldn't stop in time. I'd rather that than having to avoid traffic. About ten minutes later the pilot came on the com and told us what we already knew, but not why. We had an "aborted landing" but will be circling around for another approach and be on the ground in fifteen minutes. Everything was totally OK. It gave John more time to get caught up on his email and text messages. The poor man had no cell phone service for most of the weekend. I guess AT&T doesn't serve Hayfork. I had no trouble with Verizon.
Our second landing went according to plan. The whole plane clapped and cheered. Yay! John and I caught our shuttle back to WallyPark, picked up the trusty Astro Van, and fought the traffic out of the airport and home to celebrate Mother's Day with our significant others.
It was quite the adventurous weekend. I'm glad I had to go back to work today. I needed the rest.
Our next scheduled out of town trip will be the end of September (9/26-10/1) when we go to Jacksonville for a five night engagement and the Alhambra Dinner Theater where we'll be doing six shows in five days, matinée on Saturday. Until then I'll be doing some local gigs with True Willie and the KRB. No more traveling for me for a while.
Thanks for sticking with me through the whole ordeal. It's good to be home. I think I need to play a nice, loud, honky tonk somewhere really close.
Thank you for your indulgence,
BassCliff
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