We’ve had a great first two weeks out with our new
drummer. Those of you who have been to a
show and seen him have made him feel welcome out here on the road, and have
seemed pleased so far with his fit into the group. Since the whole ‘road experience’ is new to
him, I really appreciate the positive response you have given him thus
far. It has definitely helped to get him
oriented to this huge change in his life, and I hope he continues to receive
support and welcome from our fan base around the country.
Picking up from where we left off at the end of the
last entry:
We finished up the weekend at Jackpot Junction in
Morton, MN and only had one day off before our next show. We had five shows scheduled after that one
day off, so I must say I was pretty nervous about my voice holding out
throughout the entire week. We spent the
one day off traveling from Morton up to Bismarck, ND and then had shows the
next three nights straight at the Lonesome Dove in Mandan, ND. The Dove is a special place for me because it
was the very first venue I ever played when we started touring all those years
ago. I still remember it well. We were scheduled there for two weeks
straight, playing six nights a week. I
was terrified. The first week there was
also PBR week in Bismarck, and that weekend was insane. Kevin and I sang the national anthem at the
Bull Riding Event on that Thursday night, and then Thurs – Sat we performed
outside of the Club on the Cooper Tires Stage (that was the first of many times
we’ve been on that stage over the years).
I was so used to just playing on weekends before we started touring;
doing six nights in a row was a lot for me then. I was not prepared. Back home when we’d just play on Friday and
Saturday nights, I didn’t have to worry about blowing my voice out. I didn’t know how to have vocal control to
get myself through so many shows. I was
so unprepared for how difficult a task that is that on Saturday night of that
first week at the Dove I lost my voice halfway through the show. It was just gone. Kevin and Aaron had to sing for the rest of
the night. Plus we had another show on
Sunday of that week, then only one day off before six more nights in a row. Somehow I did recover enough to make it
through that second week, but how I’ll never know. I’ve learned a lot since then about making my
voice last through several shows in a row without rest days in between, but
there are still times when it is difficult to maintain without many rest days. Which I guess brings me back to this current
run. We had eight shows to do in nine
days, plus two full days of rehearsal before those shows. Again, I was pretty worried about my voice
holding out throughout these first two weeks.
Anyway, where was I???
Oh, we had three shows at the Dove. It is always nice to go back there because
we’ve had a fan base going there since the beginning. It was also a nice place to take our new guy
to early on in his touring experience.
He got to meet some of our earliest fans, and we were able to be at the
same place for a few days in a row, so he didn’t have to set up and tear down
every day. We don’t play a ton of
multiple nights at the same venue anymore like we did in the early days. Most of the time it is set up, play, tear
down, travel to the next town. He’ll get
plenty of experience with that soon enough.
We did have to tear down right after the show on
Thursday night though, because we had to travel down to Iowa for Friday night’s
show. I keep saying this isn’t as
glamourous of a lifestyle as people seem to think. Here is another great example of what I mean:
we played the show Thursday night, tore down right after the show, got to bed
about 3am, left at 6am to start driving to our next show, spent 11 hours in the
van to get down to Iowa, and immediately had to set up for that show. Once we got there and set up we didn’t even
have enough time to go to the hotel (which was in a different town about 20
minutes away) to shower or relax at all before the show. Luckily for us, the owner of the venue lived
about two minutes away, and allowed us to take some quick showers at his
place. We made it back just in time to
start the show. So after about 2 hours
of sleep, 11 hours in the van, plus setting up quickly, we got up on stage and
went to work.
That was a tough show for me to get through. Not that I was having any trouble singing,
but I couldn’t keep my eyes open for the first half of the performance. I kept catching myself with my eyes closed
and having to force them back open, and then keep reminding myself to keep them
open. I’d be willing to bet it was not
our most energetic show. But we made it
through, and somehow made a good enough impression on the owner of the venue
and the patrons there that night. Oh,
and after that extremely long day of traveling with minimal sleep and setting
up and performing, we had to tear down right after the show so we could travel
again the next day to the next town.
Our final show of this long run was about 4 hours
away in River Falls, WI at a club called Maverick’s Corner Saloon. Both the previous night’s show and this one
were at new venues, which you know I always enjoy. There’s just something exciting about not
knowing the place you’ll be playing that night; not knowing the people in the
crowd, etc. A big part of why we travel is to perform in new towns and in new
venues in front of new people, so I get excited every time we get to perform at
a new place. This club wasn’t huge, but
was set up really well for live music.
Sometimes I really like smaller venues like that; if there are a lot of
people, it turns into almost a concert atmosphere, at least on a small
scale. Putting a lot of people into a
small space in front of the stage gets me going. I feed off of that kind of energy; I thrive
in that kind of environment. Anyway,
River Falls is a college town, so we expected a younger audience that
night. I was surprised by how many
people we knew there that night, especially at a new venue in a new town. I guess I have to thank Garth Brooks for a
few of them: he was playing in Minneapolis that weekend, and a couple of our
fans saw how close we were to Minneapolis and made the trip over to our show
after they left his show. We knew a
couple people there that happened to live about 10 miles away and had seen us
play at other venues in the past. But
the biggest surprise for me was this: I was standing on stage at the beginning
of our first break with my back to the audience when I heard someone say my
last name. Two things here: it is very
uncommon for me to just hear my last name in the first place, and also most
people just don’t know my last name (most of you just know me as Michael
D.). So when I heard someone calling me
by my last name, I was definitely startled and a little confused. I turned around to see a friend of mine from
college standing there. We played
football together in college, but I haven’t seen or heard from him in a very
long time. I was not expecting that at
all. It turns out that he coaches
football now at the University there in River Falls. He heard that I was
playing in town and came out to say hi.
I had no idea he even lived there.
I must say I love surprises like this: seeing someone unexpectedly after
many years. Traveling the way we do and
with a schedule as brutal as ours, I have lost touch with so many people
throughout the years. I try to keep up
with what is going on in people’s lives, but it is extremely difficult for me
to keep in contact with people the way I’d like to. So to unexpectedly see an old friend was
really nice. Even if we only had a few
minutes to catch up before I had to get back on stage, it was so nice to see
him after all these years.
After that show we had three much needed days off
before our next one. I should say ‘have’
instead of ‘had’ there, since I’m writing this during one of those nights
off. So we have three much needed days
off. We spent one of those days
traveling (like so many of our days off).
We decided to get back up to Bismarck for those days off. Two reasons for this: one, because our next
show is on Wednesday in the southwestern part of this state, and two, because
we heard there was a snow storm coming in on Sunday night and we were hoping to
not have to travel through it any other day.
Fortunately I made it through those 8 shows in 9
days without any major vocal issues. It
is definitely not the longest string of shows with the least amount of rest
days, but it was still a long one none the less. I think the longest stretch of consecutive
days in a row of shows is 13. And I
think one time we did something like 19 shows in 21 days one time, or something
like that; I don’t remember exactly. But
those were all way back in the day when I had Kevin, Aaron and Brent all
singing throughout the night to help out when needed. Actually, they were able to cover an entire
show vocally without me if needed. They did so on a couple of occasions; they
played a couple of shows without me even there.
But now I take on much more of the lead vocal responsibility throughout
the show, and do a lot of harmony singing as well, so it would be tough to get
through those stretches now. It would
probably be doable with a lot of self-control, but I don’t have any desire to
attempt it.
I’ve been meaning to do it for a long time, but a
few days ago we finally released a video for our song “Friends Like
These”. This song is really special for
me because it is kind of my ‘thank you’ to everyone out there who has supported
us over the years. I’ve discussed
several times throughout my writing how sentimental I am about having such a
dedicated fan base and how much it means to me that so many people enjoy what
we do. So we had wanted to do a video
for that song to reflect that somehow.
We decided to do a picture collage video of us with our fans throughout
the country. This is not as easy as I
thought. For one thing, there are tons
of pictures out there to sift through; and those are just the ones I either
have or know about. There are probably
thousands more pictures of us with people at our shows that I have no idea
about. Then there was the issue of
trying to get a good representative sample of pictures from different areas of
the country and over the span of our touring experience, plus throw in a few
from the early days of this band back when we were just playing
regionally. Narrowing down all those
pictures was daunting. Plus, there was
no way to include everyone that should have been included; I know I left out so
many pictures of some of our really solid fans. While I know there was no
possible way to include everyone (that would have been a much longer video), it
still troubled me that there would be people left out that have been so
supportive over the years. Maybe I’m
just overthinking it and people don’t really care one way or the other, who
knows. But anyway, I finally compiled a
group of photos that I thought was a good representative sample of our fan
base, and we assembled them to go with the song. While I realize that there was no video
creativity in this one (and Josh and I do really enjoy being creative when
putting together a video), I am very pleased with it. The only other issue I had was this: while
the ‘friends’ I’m referring to in the song are the people who come see us and support
our music, I could have also been referring to all those musicians I’ve had the
pleasure of sharing a stage with over the years. We could have just as easily made a second
video of just stage shots (and off stage shots I guess too) of me and various
members of the band from over the years.
There are definitely several musicians that have made this whole
experience worthwhile for me as well.
But in the end, I really wanted to focus on our fan base for this one,
which is what we did. In case you
haven’t seen the video yet, here it is:
I also mentioned last week that since having another
Mike in the band can be confusing I started calling him ‘Other Mike’. Since then we have already come up with a
couple different nicknames for him; none of which I think he likes very well. But I’ll mention them all here and maybe
we’ll figure this out eventually. I have
been calling him ‘Other Mike’. Kevin
started calling him ‘New Mike’, which turned into ‘N-mike’, which then somehow
turned into ‘Newman’. I think ‘Newman’
is pretty damn funny: both because of the Seinfeld reference and because he is
the New Man. I’m not sure if it is going
to stick though like Josh’s nickname ‘Jorge’.
Someone also suggested ‘Whiskey Mike’ as a nickname, but I don’t think
he’s really a whiskey drinker, so I’m not sure where that one came from. It may have been b/c he was wearing a hat
with the word whiskey on it. Anyway, if anyone has any good suggestions,
let us know so we can get this whole two Mike thing sorted out. Until then I think I’ll stick with ‘Other
Mike’. Oh, if any of his friends from
back home are reading this, maybe they could help us out with this
problem. If there are some old nicknames
that would work better, EMAIL me and let me know: michaeldband@gmail.com.
Lastly, for the next two weeks we are doing
something we haven’t done in a long time with merch: shipping it. Lately we have discontinued a few items, and
we still have some of our old maroon shirts in stock. So from now through November 23st,
we are taking orders for those shirts and will be shipping them out to you
during the week of Thanksgiving. If you
are interested in purchasing one (or several), email me at: michaeldbandmerch@gmail.com and I
will send you instructions on how to place an order. We will take all orders throughout these next
two weeks or until we run out of stock.
Don’t miss this last opportunity to get a soon to be vintage MDB shirt.
Oh, I almost forgot.
I had also recently talked about putting some of my old music on I-TUNES
for you all to have access to. Earlier
this week I sent a single to be released.
It just became available this morning. The direct link is below. I am excited for you to hear some of my early
stuff. I hope you’ll be as giving with
your feedback as you all were about the songs on our latest album. If this first single does well, I have two
more singles from my early days that I have set to release as well. So we’ll see how it goes.
Below is the link to the new song:
That’s all I have for this entry. As always, take a few moments to check us out
at the following online locations:
www.themichaeldband.com
Be safe out there.
We hope to see you at a show soon.
Where did you disappear to everyhing ok?
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