Last night:

I get back from the grocery store, feed the cats, and put the perishables away, and take the first sip of a beer. I heat a frying pan and take a burger I’d thawed the day before from the fridge and put salt and pepper on both sides.

The phone rings and it’s my friend Ferg, who might call at any time of day just to say hi, or at other times, to suggest an outing. The later is the case.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting ready to fry a burger. You?”

“Do you want to go to U2?”

“What?”

“Me and Matt Sweeney and Cowboy and Cousin Bob are going to U2. Do you want to come?”

“Yeah.”

“Meet us at PM by 6.”

“Cool. Tell you what, order me a burger. I’ll be right over.”

“They’ll have food backstage.”

“OK, scratch that. I’ll be there in 20 minutes.”

I love this town. You never know what kind of random possibility will present itself. I had no idea the biggest four-piece rock band in the world was in town. But hand it to Ferg to come up with five backstage passes to their sold out show at Vanderbilt Stadium.

You have to know the characters in this little drama. Ferg is Dave Ferguson, a Nashville recording engineer, whose big client in recent years was the team of Rick Ruben and Johnny Cash. He’s a partner with John Prine in the Butcher Shoppe studio. Ferg learned how to push buttons and turn knobs from Cowboy Jack Clement, a veritable recording legend. Jack just turned 80 and is in the process of yet another transformation. At Sam Phillips’ Sun Studios in February of 1957, Jack was the guy that pushed the red button to capture Jerry Lee Lewis’s seminal “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin On”, unleashing a rock and roll monster and cementing a friendship with “the Killer” that lasts to this day. Jack wrote songs, performed, and produced recordings for Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Charley Pride, John Hartford, and many more. He’s made and lost several fortunes, built three recording studios, and generally had his finger on the pulse of Nashville’s music scene since the mid 1960’s. His latest facility, Cowboy Arms and Recording Spa, on Belmont Boulevard near Woodmont, caught fire just seven days ago. The floor to the attic studio crashed into the ground floor, and a piece of iron is all that’s left of his Steinway grand piano. He was able to save his guitars, and the firemen thankfully covered a shelf stacked with hard drives with plastic, so hopefully his precious recordings have survived. It’s a tragedy, but Jack had good insurance and he plans to rebuild.

Ferg and Cowboy worked with Bono, Edge and company on “Rattle and Hum” at Sun Studios in 1987. Ferg released an email into U2’s organization last week after the fire, and sure enough he got a call yesterday, show day, and perhaps coincidently, his 49th birthday.

The rest of the cast for last night’s salvo includes Matt Sweeny, guitarist of choice for Rick Ruben’s productions. That’s him all over Adele’s smash release “21.” Yesterday also happened to be Matt’s 42nd birthday. He and Ferg are currently working with a Swedish pop singer named Anna Ternheim. I recorded some fiddle for them a month ago. The remaining character is Jack’s second cousin Bob, custom furniture builder and part time musician.

I meet Ferg and Matt at a bar on Belmont called PM, and then we drive to a hotel on West End where Jack’s staying. From there Cousin Bob drives the party to the show in Cowboy’s Cadillac. Crowds swarm as we near the stadium; we get stopped where a street is closed off. Bob pulls into PF Chang’s valet parking stop, hovering there a few minutes while Ferg and Matt go on foot to find out where to get the passes. As is often the case at large events, ATT networks are jammed, so without cell phone communications, it’s a miracle we are able to intuitively park close to the stadium, and then independently find Ferg and Matt just outside one of the stadium entrances. The whole time, Jack’s asking, “When does the show start?” and “Why are we going so early?” But he’s a youthful 80 years old, and well up to the walk around the stadium, into the gate, over the bleachers and through crowds to the backstage, and someplace called “the round room” where we’ll supposedly meet with the fellas in the band. Ferg’s charging ahead, but Jack keeps running into fans, and stops to talk. I stay in between Ferg and the lagging Jack and Bob, and we inch worm along. After a couple spirals around the outside, the circles tighten and we’re now walking hallways underneath the stadium, eventually entering a room with about 300 hangers on holding either Kirkland water bottles or Budweiser longnecks. Matt gets waylaid at this time and ends up at catering, but we settle for some crackers and nuts in the round room. After 20 minutes a nice blonde U2 operative in painted on pants greets us, and informs us that in another 20 minutes she’ll take us back to meet the guys. Jack finds a chair and watches the folks mill around. Next we’re escorted to yet another curtained enclosure, where we wait yet another 20 minutes eat more nuts, drink more water. Dierks Bentley and his lovely wife join us for a few minutes, then leave. Then all of a sudden here comes Bono and the Edge, dressed and ready for the stage. They’re both effusive and friendly and surprisingly calm given that they’re going to play for 50,000 people in a few minutes. They express their sympathy for Jack’s loss. When introduced to me and Sweeny, Bono says, “Oh, you’re Italian” which is the exactly the same thing Charley Pride said to me when Ferg introduced me to him a year or so ago. Soon the front half of U2 exits and we continue on the spiral path, along with Bill and Karyn Frist and others to platform A, just in front of the mixing console.

Waves spontaneously generate in the thousands around and above us, and the excitement is tangible. A drum tech steps on stage and the crowd goes wild. Then the band appears on the wrap around video screen above the stage, as they too spiral towards their performance. They take the stage and start to rockin, thank you very much. It’s loud and amazingly full for a four piece, and of course we know they travel with 100 semi trucks full of gear, so it should sound good. After four songs, Cowboy’s had enough. U2’s amazing, but it’s time to go, and we walk quickly to the corner where Bob picks us up in Cowboy’s Sedan de Ville.

After dropping Jack as his hotel, Cousin Bob heads back to the concert, and Ferg, Matt, and I drive to Broadway Brew house for a drink. But Sweeney forgot his ID, so we’re turned away. We try Madison House, a fancy speakeasy place on Division I’ve heard about, but after waiting 15 minutes to get in, we give up and go our separate ways. It’s not quite 10pm, and Ferg’s gotta get his house ready for a birthday pickin party tomorrow, and also has to pick up Anna at the airport in the morning. He drops me at PM, as my car’s parked near there. I sit at the bar with some of the staff there, order food, watch baseball highlights, and relate what just happened.

Just another Saturday night in Nashville, my hometown.

“Chicken & Egg” is the title on my new CD. A few weeks ago a friend discovered a visual artist named Tim O’Brien who has a painting named “Chicken and the Egg.” Very cool. View the painting at www.drawger.com/tonka/?article_id=10230.

My summer issue of “Goldenseal” arrived last Tuesday. It’s a magazine dedicated to West Virginia folk life, and the cover picture is a rooster with “Chickens!” in large type above it.

Arriving backstage at Telluride, I noticed the dressing rooms were decorated with pictures of, you guessed it, chickens!

And while driving through Montrose on the way back from Telluride yesterday, we passed a Mexican takeout place called “Pollo Azado” (roast chicken in Spanish). Of course standing outside, beckoning to customers, was a guy dressed in a chicken suit. Of course it was June 21st, the longest day of the year, so there was more room than any other day for chicken sightings.

So maybe the chicken does come before the egg. Then again, I start most days out with a fried egg and almost never eat chicken in flesh form before or during breakfast. But are you seeing more chickens out there folks? There’s a recent trend where city folks are starting to keep chickens again. There are chickens in the new CD’s photography, mostly because they were there at my neighbor’s place, and willing models. Let me know what you’re seeing out there.

Telluride wrap up: Imelda Mae was killer. The Dublin girl sang her rockabilly heart out, and her band was smoking. I particularly liked her drummer who reminded me of old style TV show house band guys who can play anything. Other highlights included the David Rawlings Machine, Vasen, Carolina Chocolate Drops, and the Punch Brothers. Mumford and Sons and Brandi Carlisle were new to me and very good. So was Lyle Lovett of course. I got my first look at the amazing tabla drumming of Zakir Hussain. Wow! He often played a percussive and melodic twin to Bela Fleck’s banjo on Saturday night. On the house band set, I particularly enjoyed a new composition from Edgar Meyer. After four days in Telluride, I always have a dry throat and a tired body.

I have some time off now until July 2nd when I’m playing the Grand Ole Opry. You can listen online at www.wsmonline.com.

The Mark Knopfler tour has begun. The band includes: Mark Knopfler - all kinds of guitars, and vocals on his own stellar songs. Guy Fletcher - keyboards, samples, guitars, and vocals. Guy is the music director, Marks right hand man on stage and in the studio. Danny Cummings - drums and vocals. Richard Bennett - all kinds of guitars, bouzoukis, caviquiño. Glenn Worf - basses Matt Rollings, piano, organ, accordion, and vocals Mike McGoldrick - flute, penny whistle, pipes, cittern Me - fiddle, mandolin, acoustic and electric guitar, bouzoukis, banjo, vocals.

We started with three weeks of rehearsal in London. It was funny staying in the same hotel room for that long. Amazingly, I only had curry about six times, three of them at the Standard Balti house on Brick Lane. Kit came for a visit the last week. On a ten day break between rehearsals and the tour start, I went home and mixed a new record. It's now mastered and the artwork is coming along. Its title is Chicken and Egg, and it features 11 of my new songs, and three covers.
March 13
My roadie is named Kevin Rowe. His great grandparents on his mom's side are East Indian, but moved to the Jamaica, where his dad's family descended from the slave culture. Then his parents moved to the England, so he has an East Indian look, African color. and a British Birmingham accent. He was working most recently with Ray Davies and he's as sweet as can be. Every member of the crew is wonderful and very attentive. I take one instrument off and Kevin hands me the next one, having tuned it and put the capo on the correct fret. Then he makes sure it's turned on. These guys learn the show just like we do. Kevin's also minding bassist Glenn Worf and flute and cittern player Mike McGoldrick. Mark has his own guy who does all his effects. Kerry Lewis is the monitor mixer, A Welshman. He has eight separate mixes for the band plus a few more, and each song is programmed specially, so if it's a quieter song, or a louder song, or whatever the variables could be, he adjusts the mix to your needs. It's getting better daily. The custom molded in ear-monitors act like earplugs, shutting out ambient noise (drums, electric guitars), so it's pretty well manageable. Dave Dixon on he front of house mix is doing the same with programming the mixes as we rehearse.

I'm playing Richard Bennett's '54 telecaster, through Mark's Fender Vibroverb, but today i needed a really shitty, dirty overdriven sound with extreme tremolo for a killer chilled out song called Coyote, so they brought out a little five watt Marshall. We turned it all the way up and i get this really sparse but crucial part. Just one more detail to handle. Many more to go, of course, but we've learned about eighteen songs.

Day off tomorrow. Road manager Pete McKay is trying to get us a private tour of the Tower of London, after it closes. There's some sort of elaborate key ceremony he says we should see, where they lock all the doors and turn them over to the night staff. (As long as they don't lock us in there&.) There's a solo Bach competition at the library a block away, from I think 10am to 6pm. I might check that out. I need to review the detail of the week. I have my fiddle and guitar in the room, plus a ukulele that my English friend Phil Davidson just made for me. There's a lot of little fiddle and flute lines to remember. I have a hard time remembering each piece, particularly a couple days later. We've been going back over most stuff each day, practicing groups of two or three songs and the transitions between them. Its not like we can start them over when the tour starts. Most of these guys have been in the band since 96, so Mike and I are new guys and the vets are sympathetic to our steep climb on the learning curve. Im learning intimately that less is more. I hope to slowly acquire a level of discipline that's rarely been required or exercised in my normal situation in the past thirty years as a pro.

Okay, I'm meeting Richard Bennett in the pub across the street.

April 10

The plane takes off like a rocket, sorta shooting up into the sky. There are three sections - Mark and Guy face each other on the right front side, there's an aisle in the center, with Danny and Richard on the opposite side. Middle section of four clustered around a dinette table with aisle to one side is myself and Glenn facing backwards, Mike and Matt facing forward. Paul Crockford, Tim Hook, and Pete McKay -manager and road managers - are in a sorta back room by the toilet. We were handed bottles of water and newspapers at our seats and then after takeoff here comes sushi. And more sushi in case you wanted it. And the stewardess took drink orders for the trip after the show. We get there and the drinks are poured and waiting. After takeoff, Chinese food.

The flight from Seattle to Vancouver provided stunning views of the San Juan Islands and Puget Sound, and occasional peeks at snow capped peaks to the east. That was my first flight on a private jet.

Another less amazing but still notable first was the electric mirror in my Seattle hotel bathroom. A remote control sat by the sink, so I pushed the on button, and CNN came on in the mirror. Somehow it's about a second and a half behind the TV in the room itself.

After the gigs these first few nights, we've adjourned to the hotel bar for band meetings. Recapping the show and what could be tighter, how it's pace could adjust with a slightly different set list, monitor problems, lighting, everything is up for analysis. Mark really cares about it getting it right so we can dig deeper into the groove and do the best we possibly can.

Last night's set: Border Riever - I play a fiddle tuned up a half step to make Scottish sounds in C minor. What It Is - normal tuned fiddle, more Scot's licks in unison with Mark's electric guitar and Mike McGoldrick's whistle.

Sailing To Philadelphia - I sing the part of Charles Mason to Mark's Jeremiah Dixon, play Nugget bouzouki.

Cleaning My Gun - my part is Mark's recorded finger picked telecaster, against Richard Bennetts Burns electric 12 string, while Mark sings and plays fills on his electric.

Coyote - I switch from a fender Vibroverb to a little Marshall with radical tremolo (driven by that nasty back pickup), and play a sparse but essential arpeggio on the chorus, and whole note tremolo chords throughout.

Hill Farmer - back to the Fender and both pickups. Another third chair electric part played with pickup switch in middle position. I'm using Richard's 54 Tele because it's just a lot better sounding than mine.

I sit out Romeo and Juliet and Sultans Of Swing, get my banjo ready for: Marbletown - Ome banjo clawhammer style. Mark on small bodied Martin. There's a jam on most songs toward the end. On this one, Mark and I play off of one another, and then Mike joins in, we end up in a reel I don't know the name of, and then it somehow concludes.

Remembrance Day - techs bring out stools for Richard and me. He's on Strat and I'm on Mark's D-42, playing a twin finger picking rhythm part while Mark remembers and plays fills. Speedway To Nazareth - back to banjo on a Highland kinda song melody, with lyrics about NASCAR. Marks got a Les Paul, and Richard starts the song on an acoustic, but toward the end there's jam again, and he switches to his Les Paul and makes a dramatic power chord entrance. It's the roar of a high performance race care engine in musical form and Im this little plinky thing between their throbbing solid bodies& This makes Mark smile every time.

Telegraph Road - this one is a mini pop rock symphony about the progress of civilization. Mike and I play a double cittern and bouzouki part (I'm on the Giacomel) that sparkles under the vocal at times, other times we're tacit.

We go off stage, knowing we'll play encores. There are beers and wine glasses and margaritas, and a non-alcoholic drink for Matt Rollings. We get ready for the finish: Brothers In Arms - I play sparkly mando arpeggios, twinning Richard's finger picked part. Shangri-La - I'm back on the Giacomel, strumming an island groove, singing high baritone. We all come center stage and take bows and of course the crowd wants more. We confer and check the time, and then play:

Local Hero - Nugget mandolin chords.

Piper To The End - another Scottish fiddle and whistle part, on a song about Mark's late uncle, a piper in World War II.

As we leave the stage, we take our in ear monitors and receiver packs, put them in tubs with our names on them. Road manager Pete McKay hands us our jackets, having already taken our carryon bags to the cars. In about three minutes we're rolling toward the airport, and soon right to the door of the jet. On this flight I can leave my Swiss army knife in my pocket. When we land in Portland 40 minutes later, a customs agent comes on board and clears us through.

I need to thank Brad Inserra for his hospitality at his Swing Side Café on the night of our Seattle tech run through. The whole band plus road mangers went there on the 7th. Perfect oysters in ponzu sauce, bean salad, tripe stew, calamari in earthy sauce, and the mushroom and lobster risotto sealed the deal. A private mini concert by the Spoonshine duo ended it. Thanks also to Orville Johnson and John Orleman for the dim sum in Chinatown.

My interest piqued by Mark's song Sailing To Philadelphia I've started reading Thomas Pynchon's Mason and Dixon.

Golden Gate Park's Speedway Meadows was packed with about 100K music fans during the peak hours of this year's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival. Today's paper estimated that 750 thousand people would attend this year's ninth annual free event.

Yesterday on the west facing Banjo stage, I played a set with Mike Bub, Casey Driessen, Kenny Malone, Darrell Scott, and my sister Mollie O'Brien.

When she lit into a big fat high note on "Shut De Doe," the crowd responded as one with a spontaneous yell, folding the thrill back to us on stage. I also sat in with Steve Martin, who caught his hat in the air after it blew off during his set. Then as the sun disappeared in the west, in 35-degree weather, and wind gusts of 50 miles an hour, I played the final set of the day with Steve Earle's Bluegrass Dukes. Dennis Crouch wedged himself and the bass against the stage, as his instrument was the biggest sail on stage. Late in the set, I grabbed Steve's guitar for a few numbers and was blown back several feet. I was glad to be wearing a Fishing Music ball cap, and a polyester blend All Black's jersey. Still, about 40 minutes into the set, my fingers felt like stones, the only feeling the sting of the strings as they vibrated against the fingertips.

Today I'm playing in Darrell's band for the first set on the Banjo stage. Mid-point in Darrell's set, I looked to my right and saw Robert Plant sitting on the stage skirt, watching us play. I tried my best to ignore him, thinking he might go away. He did.

When it came time for my solo on Darrell's song "With A Memory Like Mine," I closed my eyes and thought of my long lost brother Trip, who died in Viet Nam back in 1968. I got lost in the music and when I finished and looked up, four Canadian geese were flying right over the stage against a clear blue sky. The sight took my breath away.

Several years ago this festival took place during "Fleet Week," a time when US Navy displays its big ships in San Francisco Bay. The Blue Angels flew over the festival grounds several times that year, to Ricky Skaggs' delight, and to Steve Earle's chagrin. I have to admit the geese in formation made less noise, and were a heap more meaningful to me. I decided the four were Trip, my mom, (both former Marines), and Charles Sawtelle, and Frank Edmonson, my departed Hot Rize cohorts.