Well it's certainly been the musical weekend for both Barrett and I. First off on Friday night I headed up 
to Berkeley to attend a show by Hans York and produced by my good friend Phil Cohen from CoYo Productions. It was a great show in the quaint community run theatre/coffee house 'Freight and Salvage' with many happy fans treated to an excellent show from Hans. Han's new CD 'Young Amelia' is well worth checking out - cool, melodic, mellow and very polished. You're likely to hear it on KFOG as it's getting good airplay there over the past few months, especially on Acoustic Sunrise every Sunday morning.
On Saturday Mission 101 again played Santana Row in the same location and boy did we enjoy it! Again the location was hot, hot, hot, and shade was again of paramount importance. That said the show went very well if a little quiet. The location in particular is rather transient so we tend to find ourselves now keeping it very relaxed, very mellow and laid back as that better suits the mood of folks in that venue. By the end of the show we were both pretty tired. It's amazing how three hours of performing in 80deg heat can drain you. Regular water breaks and sit downs are a must.
On Sunday there was one final excursion for the week. This time we headed south to Salinas to try out for a backup band opportunity for Randy Travis who will be playing in the area in a few weeks time. It was a akin to a small-town American Idol experience for both of us. First off the auditions were held in a large downtown theatre attended by two hundred or so locals. After casing the joint for an hour or so and getting a feel for the venue, the stage and the audience, we headed back stage to sign in and await our turn. Backstage was fun to say the least as we were surrounded by fellow performers of every age and music genre. There were young kids with their moms, teenagers, old fogies in their latter years and Mission 101 somewhere there in the middle. When our time came to perform we went on stage and plugged in. After a brief introduction from the host for the show, we kicked straight into 'Riding Shotgun' - our up-tempo crowd favorite.
The whole thing was over in minutes and we were shuttled off stage to make space for the next. All performers were allowed to do one song, and having finished ours I packed up and headed back to the Valley for the remainder of my weekend with my family. The only problem was the traffic which had me stuck on the freeway for almost two hours.
On arriving home Barrett informed me that we didn't make it to the next level of the competition. Apparently the judges were looking for uber-country type music and we certainly don't fall into that category - I think I'm happy to say.
So that's if folks, next weekend is quiet but there is a show in Santana Row again during the week. I'm sure Barrett will update the schedule as soon as we have details. Until then, once again, thanks for riding shotgun with us!
Mission 101
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