Oakland and San Jose - 5/10/13

On May 4 we all packed our bags to move on to San Francisco to stay for a few days. We would play a show at the Oracle Arena in Oakland on the 5th and one at the HP Pavilion in San Jose on the 8th. We arrived at the Four Seasons late in the afternoon of the 4th and Rose Lane and I went to dinner just around the corner at a fine Indian restaurant called Amber. I had Lamb Vandal (love that hot stuff!) with a great starter of flash fried spinach. Rosie had fish curry. And it was all terrific. We supplemented it with a nice bottle of chardonnay and enjoyed the service there. Afterwards we went back to the room where we had another couple of glasses of wine before calling it a night.

The next day Rose Lane and I had lunch at the Four Seasons restaurant before going to the show early on the 1pm van. Rosie has actually landed a job on the tour backstage, helping Isobel Work (head of wardrobe) and Caroline Clements (hair and makeup artist). It works out great, as she has been helping with that sort of thing on past tours anyway…but now her contribution has been recognized. I like to get to the gig early as well, so I have plenty of time to work on the set list, check out my gear, etc.

Chuck Leavell with Tom Waits

We arrived and went to work. Tonight’s guest would be Tom Waits. Tom is a close friend of Keith Richards’…they have done a few recordings together. He wanted to do “Little Red Rooster”, which I thought fit perfectly. I had a look at the rest of the set list and jiggled it a bit and put a proposal together for Mick to review. Then went to check out my gear and see Mike Klvana, my tech. All was in order and at 4:30 we had our sound check. As mentioned previously, we are having choirs with us from each city to do the opening for “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”, and after going through our usual sound check procedure, and doing LRR with Waits, we had the choir up to run through their bit. All went well and we retreated to our respective dressing rooms to start the process of getting ready for the show. I went to catering to get a bite first, then to the room that Darryl Jones and I share.

Natalie and Richard Kerris with Rose Lane

My friend Richard Kerris’ wife, Natalie, who works at Apple Computer had arranged for some of their top guys to come to the show. One, John Richey, gave me some help with my computer issues. I had been experiencing some problems with syncing information between programs on my Mac Book Pro, and John was kind enough to get in and clean some things up for me. Another from Apple was the great Sir Jonathan I’ve, their top designer who is responsible for the design of the Mac Book Pro, iMac, iPhone, iPods and iPads. Jony is a bonafide genius and was one of the closest persons to Steve Jobs. I had my picture taken with him and got to speak to him for a short time. He was a really humble, sweet guy and as nice as he could be. I was amazed to meet him. I made my way to VIP to see my guests for a bit…which included our good friends the Duncan family, who own the Silver Oak Winery and who came hunting with us at Charlane Plantation this past season.

Ray Duncan, Chuck and David Duncan

Ray, the dad and his wife Sally; David, Tim, Kevin and Mike, the sons; and their spouses and some friends with them. Also, Dan Ashley, a well known news anchor for KGO, San Francisco’s top tv station; my pal Joel Silverman and his wife Deri (Joel works for Millennia Media, a high end audio gear company) and Fred Reid, a friend that works for Virgin America airlines. I spent some time with all of them, and it was great to catch up with all. There were other friends that I wanted to get passes for, but we had been cut off due to the small room.

Then it was time to get ready for the gig…Darryl and I got dressed and waited for the appointed time to hit the stage. It was another good one…and we were all pleased to have two great shows to get things going.

May 6 and 7

The next two days were off days for us. I had an interview lined up on the 6th with Dan Ashley, the previously mentioned news anchor for KGO TV. We did it at a place called The Gold Dust Lounge on Jefferson St. in the Fisherman’s Worf area. Dan picked the place because it had a digital piano setup. He had everything ready when I get there at 2pm…. cameras in place and ready to go. Dan is a really great guy and was totally prepared. We talked about the tour, of course…but he let me get a lot in about The Mother Nature Network and the environmental work that I do, which was important to me. I played a snippet of “Losing Hand” from my latest CD, “Back To The Woods”, which was good to get in. Dan also sings in a band and asked me to play “Dead Flowers” with us doing a duet. It all turned out great, and the interview ran a couple of days later…3 different times. Excellent exposure for me, for which I was most grateful.

After I got back, Rose Lane and I walked around the Market Street area doing a bit of shopping, but not much buying…just something to do to pass the time. Later we dined at the Bluestem Brasserie, which was very close to the hotel and was quite good. We had invited Matt Clifford and Caroline Clements to go with us, which they did. I had the Branzino and Rosie had the Dorade. All very tasty, and we had fun socializing with Matt and Caroline.

On Tue the 7th, we had the day to ourselves. The Four Seasons is attached to an LA Fitness facility, and those of us that like to workout were elated at the size and quality that this fitness center offered to us. It is probably the best fitness center we have ever had on tour. Rose Lane and some of the other girls on the tour have been engaging in Zumba classes, and LA Fitness offered some, so she took in a class while we were there. I made use of the free weights, machines and tread mills available. On this day we had arranged to have lunch at 1pm with Joel and Deri Silverman. We met in the hotel lobby and decided to just stay in the hotel for lunch rather than to go out. It was great to catch up with Joel and to get to know Deri. We talked about our respective pets…dogs and cats…and Joel and I talked a bit about the audio and music business. Deri is in the real estate mortgage business, and it was interesting to get her perspective on the present market in the San Francisco area. They are wine collectors…and had brought us a couple of bottles of nice chardonnay as a gift, which went to good use over the next few days. We walked them down to their car after lunch and said goodbye.

Rosie and I spent the rest of the afternoon walking down to the Embarcadero area and back, checking out some of the stores along the way. I wound up buying a couple of nice high quality tee shirts at one place and a pair of small binoculars in a camera store. For dinner we had made reservations at Farallon, a well known seafood place. We had dined there several years ago and had liked it. It didn’t quite live up to the first time we were there, but we enjoyed it nonetheless.

May 8th

Show day in San Jose. Rose Lane and I took the early van to the San Jose HP Pavilion. I busied myself with a set list proposal and some practice, and making some notes about my computer for John Richey (who had done some work on it in Oakland but who wanted to continue straightening some things out on it) was coming and I wanted to be prepared for him to address more issues with it.

Tonight’s guests were Bonnie Raitt and John Fogerty. Bonnie wanted to do “Let It Bleed”, and John wanted to do “It’s All Over Now”. At sound check we went through those, which sounded great. Bonnie has been a friend for many years and it was wonderful to see her again. She and Rose Lane are also good pals and enjoyed catching up some. I had some time with Bonnie in catering after the sound check, giving her a copy of my “Back To The Woods” CD, which I knew she would appreciate as she is such a Blues authority. We talked about Leroy Carr, Skip James and Little Brother Montgomery; some of the artists I covered on it. She told me that she had met and knew Little Brother back in the day, which was cool. Later in Mick’s dressing room when we were going over the arrangement for “Let It Bleed”, she told a story that I had never heard which thought was just amazing. When she was in college back in the early 60’s, she was studying African American History and was learning to play the guitar…and of course she loved the blues. Somehow she was invited to go on tour in Europe to help carry guitars and gear for Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and some other blues artists that were opening up shows for the Stones. She had some trepidation about leaving school, but in the end saw it as an opportunity she could not pass up. So when the Stones were just starting out, she would listen to their set after helping the blues guys get through theirs. I thought that was really a wonderful story.

I had met John once before….it was at some show where there were a lot of artists playing on the same bill, but neither he nor I could remember exactly where. (Rose Lane says Farm Aide # 1.) He is a true gentleman and a real pro.

The show was another winner…the band playing great, the guests on top of their games. I had some folks to see before the show in VIP….including Tom Prescott, who is the CEO of the company our daughter, Ashley, has worked for several years Invisalign. Ashley has worked for them all the way through her dental studies at Tufts University, and still does now that she is officially Dr. Leavell and is studying endodontics at the University of Florida. He was as nice as he could be, and it was great to meet him, his wife and the others that came with them. He was very complimentary of Ashley…and of course that made us very proud! Also in VIP was our friends Terry and Monica Anderson and their guests. Terry is a founder and President of the PERC organization (Property and Environment Research Center: www.perc.org). I have known Terry for at least a dozen years. We met when he recruited me to speak at a PERC retreat, and we hit it off right away. They do some great work and their theme is sort of “A better environment through private land ownership and stewardship”. Terry is also the author of well over 30 books, a very bright and dedicated guy.

My friend Dave Bulger, head of Stihl Northwest was also there. Stihl is still a sponsor of mine and I have maintained a great relationship with the company for at least 15 years. Dave does a great job in his position and it was fun to see him at the show.

The next day was off for us, and Rose Lane and I enjoyed time to ourselves. Friday the 10th was a travel day to Las Vegas….the entourage took a bus to the Oakland airport and boarded our private plane, wheels up at 4pm arriving at the MGM Grand hotel about 6.