Yesterday was our first full day in Indiana. The night after the flight, we met Willie Torres, who’ll be singing with us. What a character! The rhythm section had a great time in his hotel room after dinner having a traguito and talking about… recording technology and band politics. Maybe they kept the conversation clean because I was there, the only woman in the band.

I went for a run yesterday and am about to do another. I ran up City Center Drive toward the Palladium Center for the Performing Arts. There, the Monon trail intersects and you can either run toward Indianapolis or toward old town Carmel. I did the latter. After I finish this post I’m going to do it again, only this time I’ll bring money so I can buy something to eat at one of the cafes along the Monon trail. I saw a lot of Norman Rockwell-style life-like sculptures of people on the street that remind me a bit of an artist’s work I’ve seen at the Alameda County Fair over the years. But I don’t think it’s him. I wonder why they paved over the monorail for this bike/run trail? I also saw the miniature house museum (from the outside only).

The concert hall is amazing. Check my YouTube video! We were there for hours and hours setting up the sound and doing a little soundchecking and rehearsing. One thing the tour manager said is we’re going to have to try to get our mixes figured out better so it doesn’t take this long at every venue. However, this is also possibly the hardest venue, as it’s a symphony hall. Reminded me of Carnegie Hall, though some of the guys said it looked a lot like Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, which they’ve played (I haven’t). Mike Rinta said he wrote a big piece for Dan Hicks’ 70th birthday and they performed it at Davies.

We got to try out these wireless mics, Sennheiser 965s (I think) with Neumann capsules. AMAZING. Just the feel in your hand is priceless too. I joked to Willie, do you think they’d miss one? He replied, make that two, we’ll go on the run together.

I’m going to write my newsletter, go on a run, and get ready. Bus takes us to the hall at 3:15.