Well, it’s been a busy summer so far and it’s not over yet.  I’ve been continuing my work with the singer/songwriter Katie Todd.  It’s been a good time so far, and we’ve been able to put together some great opportunities. 

Since my last blog update, we opened up for Joan Rivers at the Milwaukee Pride Festival.  It was a lot of fun to play this show, but here’s  a quick note for the future.  Joan travels with A LOT of plants for her stage show.  I was walking backstage before our show, and I accidentally brushed up against a couple of the plants.  Within seconds, a security guy comes to me and says “Excuse me sir, did you know that your backside was just touching Joan’s plants?”  How do you even respond to that question?

From there we opened up for O.A.R. and the Green River Ordinance at the Milwaukee Summerfest.  If you are not familiar with Summerfest, it is billed as the world’s largest music festival.  Over 800 bands in 11 days.  We had a great show, in front of a crowd of a couple thousand people.  We put together a quick video clip of the performance that you can see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDIVloF2zRA.

After our performance, I had made plans to meet up with Ed Sargent (a friend of mine from the Maynard Ferguson tour).  Ed is now the road manager for Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, who just happened to be playing Summerfest the same day we did.  Ed, as always, was the greatest.  He marched us right out on to the stage and said “Is this seat good enough?”.  Haha.  It was great to see Ed again and also to see Joan play live.  I did manage to get a couple of cell phone pics from the show that you can see here.

From here we headed off to the ABC 7 studios in Chicago to promote our next day performance at Lilith Fair in Chicago which you can see here: http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=resources&id=7558725.

Lilith Fair was the next day and it was a little crazy.  We were there with Sarah McLachlan, Mary J. Blige, The Courtyard Hounds, Heart, and more.  It was a great day, despite the fact that the weather was so damn hot.  Here’s a a few clips of the performance, as well as Katie on stage during the concert finale: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cksm9KYkTSc.

And finally, just this last Friday, we had the chance to open up for Huey Lewis and the News.  Despite the tornado like weather, the winds, and the show being delayed almost 45 minutes, we still were able to get on stage to play a couple of songs and got a great response from over 4,000 soaking wet people who had been waiting for hours in the rain.

That’s about it for now.  I’m in my new apartment in Chicago, and my hope is that I #1 don’t get robbed again and #2 don’t move for at least another year or two.  See you soon.  Thanks for all of your continued support.  As always, check out all the new stuff going at www.wrightmusic.com.