If You’re Going to San Francisco...

We spent seven nights at the Fairmont Hotel in Nob Hill, San Francisco. Getting acclimated to the eight hour time change, we ran up a couple of new songs for our sets across America at SIR studios where Norman the little dog kept us company. The Fairmont Hotel had bee hives near the gardens and I was witness to the honey harvest.

 

This hotel has quite a history. It was hit by the 1906 7.9 earthquake, but the structure survived and was rebuilt. In December 1961, Tony Bennett debuted the epic song ‘I left my heart in San Francisco’ in the Venetian Room. The room just reeks with the atmosphere of those days.

We did our first show at the Masonic three hundred yards away from the hotel and all
was well. It was a welcome change to hear the sound come together at sound check and the evening was great. We were lucky to have Chuck Prophet and the Mission Express opening
the show for us and I had a good ear full of that before I got changed and settled my anticipation of the evening. It’s all about good songs and Chuck has written quite a good selection over the years. After a few stretches and exercises I was warmed up and ready.

The following morning we flew from Oakland to Burbank and went straight to the Arroyo Seco Weekend in Pasadena. It was good to see Clem Burke at the show and swop a few stories.
After the show I saw a few friends and was happy to meet up with Jeff Goldblum and his wife Emilie. We had been on an adventure along with a couple hundred other guests cruising in the South China seas in 2016. Jeff and I had serenaded a few Proboscis Monkeys in the mangroves of Borneo with some old time songs. He was performing at the Arroyo Seco weekend but we had arrived to late to see him due to a delayed flight.

After Jack White and just before Neil Young finished his set we got out of there and I got an early night. The highlight of the day were the Specials who are from Coventry in England. Sadly, Brad died at the end of 2015. We had done some gigs with them in 1979 and they were just great guys to be around. It’s great to see them still doing it.

I was up at 5am to watch the 2nd England game in the World Cup against Panama. We beat them 6 - 1. Then as if by magic, I watched the F1 Grand Prix live from the Paul Ricard Circuit. The Englishman Lewis Hamilton won that one. A great start to the day and a flight from Burbank up to San Jose for our Mountain Winery show in Saratoga.

I sit in my dressing room writing this blog and realise what a privilege it is to do these performances and having done them with one band or another for the past fifty-one years.

Tomorrow we fly to Philly.

M.D.C.