We visited the Ryman Auditorium and saw the birthplace of country and bluegrass music. It seems fitting that the Ryman was originally built as a tabernacle, because walking around it and thinking of all the amazing performances that have been there felt nearly spiritual. 🎶

Tammy and I saw Tina Schlieske doing her Sinatra to Simone show at The Dakota and it was incredible. She puts so much passion and energy into it that you cannot help but be moved. She was also joined by her sister Laura who did a number of songs and then they teamed up for several duets. It was a fabulous night of live music. Also our first time back to the Dakota since the pandemic! 🎶🎉

Tammy surprised me with an amazing gift for my 50th Birthday today — my very own song! A full on rock song for me featuring the family. I love it! It is on YouTube but is also published on Apple Music and Spotify!

Song by Songlorious! 🎶

Weather: Still a bit rainy in the morning, but cleared up. Fairly warm in the afternoon. Evening turned out nice.

• 9:14a: Left 14 mins late for Montpelier, VT.
• Brunch at Three Penny Taproom.
• Check out Vermont State House.
• Escape Room at Greatest Caper.
• Afternoon coffee and chocolates at Rabble-Rouser.
• Drive back to St. Johnsbury.
• Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium for exhibits and two showings in the platerium.
• Dog Mountain very cool, the Chapel was moving. 😢
• Dog Mountain Levitt Amp Conert to see Mike Mains and The Branches. 🎶
• Dinner at Kingdom Taproom & Table.

Jump to day 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 of Vermont Road Trip.

We were excited to watch Brandi Carlile stream her first live show tonight from the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Brandi and the Twins have done a number of streamed shows from their home during the pandemic. But this was the first show with the band, on a professional stage, and a limited number of vaccinated folks in the audience. It was amazing! 🤩

Carlile started with her powerful cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”, just her and a guitar. She was then joined by the Twins, and then the band on the third song. She hit every song you would want to hear. The whole band was filled with so much energy, so excited to be playing together on a stage for the first time in over a year, that it came all the way through the Internet and out the TV in our family room. ⚡️

We’ve been seeing Brandi Carlile sing for years now and we only get more impressed with her. She is an amazing performer, songwriter, and musician. Our whole family enjoys her music!

She finished the evening with an incredible performance of Amazing Grace. It was so beautiful I was wiping the tears from my eyes. If you haven’t seen Carlile, you really should. Her talent is amazing.

Tonight we streamed The Cactus Blossoms as they played live to a limited 50-table audience at First Avenue. It was great to see them play live, and the production from First Avenue was really good with multiple cameras sweeping through the room. I hope that they continue to offer streaming options for shows. I like the idea of having an option to see bands live in the main room, but also being able to see them streaming opens up a lot of additional options to see live music that otherwise aren’t available.

Streaming Brandi Carlile’s Campfire Singalong. Love the intimate feel, like joining them for a jam session around the fire. 🔥 It’s great to get some live music; warms the heart. 🎶

“The Twins” playing Homeward Bound by Simon & Garfunkel is amazing. Sounds great.

The acoustic cover of Radiohead’s “Creep” amazing as well. We need a Brandi Carlile cover album!

I could listen to Brandi and the Twins singing “The Eye” over and over, and never get tired of it.

Brandi is intent on going on and on, but we are calling it a night after “The Mother”, two hours in. Will have to see tomorrow how long it actually does go!

Tammy and I went to the opening night of Travail’s Kitchen and Amusements Rooftop service tonight. We were lucky enough to grab tickets right when they went on sale and it was a southwest tasting menu that looked absolutely delicious to us.

Travail did a very good job managing social distancing, keeping everything outside with fresh air, and making sure that people moved through promptly but not too fast. I love seeing that restaurants are figuring out how to adapt to the pandemic.

Watermelon Slurpee with Tajin
Pinto Bean & Cannellini Bean Salad
lime creme fraiche, roasted pepper salsa, gustavo romero’s nixta tortilla chips

Ceviche
coconut lime marinade, lime segments, almonds, avocado, green tomatoes, king crab, smoked swordfish, basil, fresno, cilantro, taro root

Mezzo
piña colada slurpee with coconut cream

Mexican Curry Corn & Roasted Poblano
oaxaca cheese tamale, herb and lime crema

Pescado ala Talla
cage-grilled mexican striped bass: morita chile sauce, grilled vegetables, gustavo romero’s nixta tortillas

Mezzo
Strawberry cardamom creamsicle pop

Stuffed Smoked Chicken
herbs, mesca bbq sauce, green mole, crema, mexican pickles

Mexican Chocolate Mousse
coconut cream, cinnamon waffle round

Dessert
tres leches cake, strawberry flambe, strawberry jam filling, whipped cream

Take home
churro ice cream with chocolate

Drinks

I had some delicious drinks along with dinner.

Paloma
Repasado Tequila, Spicy Grapefruit Cordial, Fresh Grapefruit & Lime Juice, Highball Soda Water

El Valiente (The Brave Man)
Tommy’s Margarita, the simple and famous blend of Tequila, Agave, Lime

Music

To top off the beautiful evening on the rooftop patio we also had delightful music from Riverside Unplugged. They played a wide variety and were seemingly ready to play anything. We requested Prince and Brandi Carlile and they did both without hesitation. 🎶

At the Wits Reunion show at the Fitzgerald!

Enjoyed Open Mike Eagle at the Wits Reunion show tonight. Recommend checking out his music. 🎶

My Mom, Sister, and all of us went to the Michael Franti show tonight! Amazing show! 🎶

Concert was amazing. His music is so inspirational and uplifting. It’s a joy to experience. I love that he ends his shows with everyone singing “Imagine” together. 🎶✌🏻🤟🏻

Mazie got on stage to dance and sing with Michael Franti tonight! 🎶✌🏻🤟🏻

Great first half for MN United v Real Salt Lake! ⚽️👍 1-1 Looking forward to shade in the 2nd half! 😓 #MINvRSL #MNUFC

Great MN United 2nd half with goals from Quintero and Finlay! ⚽️⚽️ 3-1 #MNUFC #MINvRSL

Three minutes stoppage time MN United leading 3-1. Cue Wonderwall! 🎶🤩⚽️ #MNUFC #MINvRSL

MNUFC WIN! Wonderwall ⚽️⚽️⚽️🎶 3-1 #MNUFC #MINvRSL

Brandi Carlile put on an amazing show at the Minnesota State Fair tonight! 🎶

There were figurative and literal fireworks going off! She is amazing. I strongly recommend seeing her in concert.

One of my favorite things walking into Allianz Field is the awesome UNITED fixture. WE ARE UNITED! NEVER DIVIDED! WE ARE UNITED! #MNUFC ⚽️

Minnesota United v FC Dallas tonight! ⚽️ Go United! #MNUFC #MINvFCD

Great first half Minnesota United! ⚽️ 0-0 #MNUFC #MINvFCD

Successful Minnesota United wall! ⚽️ 0-0 #MNUFC #MINvFCD

Mannone blocking a VAR-ruled penalty kick against the United in stoppage time to save the game tonight! Stunning! Awesome! Beautiful! 🙌⚽️🎉 #MNUFC #MINvFCD

Minnesota United got a major win over FC Dallas in the most amazing stoppage time I’ve ever seen! 1-0 ⚽️ Wonderwall! 🎶 #MNUFC #MINvFCD

Kickoff for Minnesota United v Houston Dynamos! #MINvHOU #MNUFC ⚽️👏

Minnesota United celebrating goal against Houston! 1-0 #MINvHOU #MNUFC ⚽️👏

Darwin Quintero getting a concussion check! All good! 👍 #MINvHOU #MNUFC ⚽️👏

Ground crew out giving Allianz Field some TLC! 🌱😍 #MINvHOU #MNUFC ⚽️

Beautiful Game! ⚽️ #MNUFC #MINvHOU

Cue WONDERWALL! Loons win 1-0! 🙌🎶⚽️ #MNUFC #MINvHOU

A trip to Austin, TX seems like it should have live music. 🎶 We saw Bob Mould play at The Mohawk tonight. Great show and cool venue!

First half of The New Standards Holiday Show was awesome. Okee Dokee Brothers, The Owls, Chris Koza, Jeremy Messersmith, Matt Wilson, Dessa, Tina Schleske, and Caroline Steele. 🎶

The New Standards brought it home with “Snow Days”, on the permanent playlist for the Holiday Show! 🎶❄️

Michael Franti & Spearhead put on an amazing and inspiring show at the Music in the Zoo last night. It was awesome how he engaged the audience and brought kids on stage to sing and dance. There was so much positive energy! 🎶

Brandi Carlile taking the stage at Big Top Chautauqua. 🎶 Crowd is excited! 🙌🏻

Her performances amaze me every time! 🎶👏🏻

Magical here. 🎶✨ Thank you!

Dan Wilson taking the stage for his 3-ring Binder “all-requests” show at Icehouse! 🎶👍🏻

Dan Wilson all-request on piano. 🎹

Dan Wilson’s 3-Ring Binder “all request” show at Icehouse was fabulous. Small venue, and all songs performed solo on either piano or guitar. He encouraged the crowd to sing along on some of the favorites. The song selection process was chaos, but he made that fun too. A very unique show, that I’m glad I got to be part of. 🎶

Beck opening up show tonight!

Big crowd for Beck. 🎶

Wonder how many friends are at U2 show tonight. I’m guessing a lot! 👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻

Can’t figure out what these boxes are at US Bank Stadium. Lots of them. WiFi? Cell?

U2 takes the stage — Joshua Tree tour!

Wow. U2 Joshua Tree. 🎶 Amazing.

U2 Joshua Tree. Bono.

U2 - Elevation 🎶👍🏻😊

U2 — One. 🎶👍🏻

Found our seats and ready for Coldplay to take the stage. First time at US Bank Stadium too! 👍🏻

Coldplay off to awesome start! 👏🏻🎶

Coldplay! Lasers! 🤘🏻

Coldplay playing from one of the satellite stages. Great show!

After the show — so much confetti.

Bad seats but still happy to be at Mumford & Sons show!

Mumford & Sons show pre-music is all Prince. Respect.

Waiting for Mumford & Sons; listening to Prince.

Purple Rain.

Wow.

Preeners Eve with The New Standards is one of my favorite New Year events! The Dakota is such a great venue. Front row seats tonight!

Excited for another The New Standards holiday show tonight! Already spotted Vice President Mondale at holiday show.

Pogues FTW! How the hell do bagpipes work anyway!? Trip Shakespeare on stage!

Snow Day!

Music in the park with Lindsay Lou & the Flatbellies in Fennville, MI. t.co/GLaF4nswX… t.co/pKUDQF1bO…

Here!

@LindsayLouMusic: Come see us play Fennville tonight 7-9pm and join us for the afterglow set 9:30-10:30!” t.co/hbVKxPvYv…

The fiddle player for @LindsayLouMusic would fit right in with @theavettbros - solid beard, aviator shades. Might need new belt buckle. :-)

The Cactus Blossoms live recording show kicking off at The Turf Club. t.co/ZLOUkU7sW…

Turf Club is packed tonight for the Cactus Blossoms. “The Cactus Blossoms and so can you.”

Around 98 °F in Turf Club. AC turned off for recording. Oi!

Odd experience. At Turf Club with Kent Tangen. Listening to Cactus Blossoms. Surrounded by a group of folks visiting from Texas. #texasswing

Upside of folks from Texas is they want to buy you beers!

The Cactus Blossoms are blowing up The Turf Club with some Hank Williams Sr. classics. t.co/wkmE9TkuO…

Excited for the The New Standards “Preeners Eve” show tonight at the Dakota! Got to walk over from the parking ramp with Chan Poling for the show!

At Coldplay concert. Floor left, row 35. Noticing all the redundant tech systems in the Coldplay setup.

Many friends at The New Standards “Preeners” show at Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant.

It has been a day since the Foo Fighters show and my ears are still ringing. This had to be one of the loudest shows I’ve been to, and it was great.

Let me start with the bad news. Kent and I had talked about going to this show specifically because Motörhead was opening for the Foo Fighters. Yeah, we wanted to see the Foo Fighters but we also really wanted to see Lemmy and the gang. Kent put it all together and added a couple of other guys to our gang to head down to the show. Sadly, when we got to the Mid-America Center in Council Bluffs there was a sign on the door saying that due to travel problems Motörhead would not be performing. Ugh!

The silver lining though was the 2nd line that said the Foo Fighters would play for 2.5 hours! When Grohl was on stage he said

We’ve got 16 years and a hundred ******* songs. How many of those do you think we can play tonight?

They played all the best of them! I grabbed a couple of video snapshots from the show to give a sense of what it was like. Did I mention it was loud?

I had seen the Foo Fighters play on the Skin & Bones tour. That was nothing like this one. This was a hard, I might even say metal, show. Grohl and the Foos put on an amazing show.

The stage set was pretty cool. They had these 6 “video orbs” on cables that moved around and showed a variety of effects. The stage itself had video projected from underneath on the floor which I still can’t figure out how they did.

There was also a small stage on a platform that lifted about 15 feet in the air toward the back of the main floor. Grohl made a few trips out there and did the solo acoustic songs in the encore on that stage.

I just love this picture that makes the stage look like it’s exploding in light.

If you dig the Foo Fighters, go check out this tour.

I heard an interview with The Black Keys on Fresh Air on MPR. That is probably the least hip way I could describe discovering a cool band like The Black Keys. I picked up their new album Brothers and am loving it. I highly recommend it!

Make sure to turn up the volume, especially on “Black Mud”.

Bob Mould blasting it at The Dakota! Awesome! Start with Wishing Well.

Bob just put away the acoustic. Time for electricity! Is this The Dakota? 🙂

Just seated at The Dakota for The New Standards show with Tammy, Phoebe, and Dave-O! Their cover of “Androgynous” is awesome. Competes with the original. It is hard to not sing along when they play “Snow Day”.

Just ordered a Blue Monk Lemonade. Seated for The New Standards at The Dakota. Waiting the arrival of Phoebe and Dave-O!

Phoebe after the show.

Following the Blue Monk Lemonade with a Love Supreme. Awesome.

(Lawrence, Kansas) Tammy and I are hanging out in Lawrence, Kansas this weekend. We are here to fulfill her New Year resolution to see Big Smith play again. It’s been about 10 years since she saw them last, and I’ve never seen them. After scouring their tour schedule she saw that the best option for us was a weekend trip bookended with 7 hours on the Interstate to Lawrence. As an added treat, they played with Blue Mountain. I’ve got three Blue Mountain albums and really like their music.

We drove down to Lawrence on Friday going through rain the entire way. We made it with an hour to spare to get checked into our hotel and walk over to The Bottleneck where the show was. The venue was great. Nice sound, big open area for dancing.

Blue Mountain is on a reunion. They split up in 2001 and decided to pack it in. However, in November they reunited and put the band back together! They put on a great show. It was almost entirely comprised of their existing catalog of old songs given the bands recent reformation. That was fine with me, it was a great walk through memory lane.

After Blue Mountain’s hourlong set Big Smith started to pile onto the stage. Pile is the correct word since there are 6 of them in the band. Big Smith is a family band. All the members of the band are 1st cousins. As they highlighted for us, that means they all have the same grandparents. Big Smith then proceeded to absolutely tear the place down for 2 hours and 15 minutes.

I’m pretty sure that we had no choice but to travel this far south to see Big Smith. I think the northern nature of Minnesota would have put some mojo on the foot stomping and clapping.

I had an absolutely great time whooping it up with everyone else. Halfway through Big Smith’s set I couldn’t help but get out on the dance floor and start stomping and clapping with everyone else. Hillbilly music at its finest!

If I only had a pair of overalls! Make sure to read Tammy’s write-up from the night as well!

TODO: Fix images.