Hi everyone…

Quick update on all things CB. Well…ok, most of the things that are CB. We do a lot, eh!?

On March 14, 2008, we were in Canadahhh! Yayyyyy!! We did a concert in Port Hope, Ontario.

We were very happy to be performing in Canada, our home country. It was fantastic for me personally to get back to Canada too. My parents live in Toronto, so I got to see them. Also, after our concert (great hall, great audience! thank you!) we hit an iconic Canadian restaurant. Thaaaaaat’s right…

You just can’t get better than Tim Horton’s! Tim was a Canadian hockey player who passed down a generations-old recipe for donuts. They are simply irresistible!

Brandon, Gene, and Joe (and my white shoes!) are on our way to our concert in Springfield, Ohio on March 28. It looks like Joe is sad to not have the police chase he experienced last time. At the very least he’s looking much calmer.

Most of the time when we’re on the road, we get to the hotel around noon, find food, and relax for a few hours before heading to the hall for a sound check and dinner. The ride to the hall is something we all use to relax together. We catch up on what we’ve been doing over the past week or two that we’d been apart, and discuss our upcoming projects too.

It’s interesting to see how different people prepare for a concert. One consistent thing is that we definitely all conserve energy in the hours beforehand. We meditate sometimes, or we just sit and chat. It’s just kind of a calm feeling more than anything…hard to describe.

I love those two hours because it’s a great time to calm down and clear my mind. Ahhhhhh. Going over the music in my mind. If I’m performing music for the first time, or so, I also do what I call “putting finish” on the music. I go over it, practice it a bit if need be, and decide that tonight’s version will be a finished product. I don’t decide it will be perfect, because what is ‘perfect’ in live performance art? Everything? Nothing? Something between?

So rather than pursue perfection in performance, I just give everything I have in that performance to create a finished passionate pristine-as-possible product. I decide that all the work I’ve put into it so far has made it as good as it will be…so far. The final elevation of the performance comes from telling myself that tonight’s version will have “finish” to it. With each performance, my “finished version” is better and better, while getting as many things as close to perfection as possible. I try to play as technically perfectly accurately as possible, for example. The time after the performance is when I look at making the next performance’s finished product better.

Here’s a further crazy thought about “finish”. If you read my “Magic Line Theory” article, you read how I draw a magic line between backstage and onstage…a line between everything not in a performance situation, and performance situations. We can look at “finish” much like a varnish that is put on wood after it is cut, sanded, etc. This varnish is called ‘finish’ as well. We can install a “shower of finish” that is raining down the magic line, and when we walk across the line, we are covered with a “performance finish”. Crazy, I know…but if you want to try it, go for it! It worked for me today.

Just warmin’ up…

“High Society” in Naples, Florida, April 8, 2008.

Backstage, Gene is getting ready to go out for Hornsmoke.

We’re talking to each other. Yes…iPhones are that amazing!

Joe is playing his incredible rendition of Duke Ellington’s “Echoes of Harlem” in Naples, Florida.

We have a fantastic summer coming up! If you live in California (L.A. and Santa Barbara), Quebec, Greece, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, New Jersey, Interlochen, Ravinia, or Bloomington, Indiana, you can see us! Check our concert calendar for more details. We also have some exciting recording releases and projects in the works.

Have a fantastic summer too, and we’ll see you around!

Keep breathing,
Jeff