Day Off in Minneapolis

Wow! Great day off!

Woke up just after 6, about 100 miles from Minneapolis. Danny (the driver) had pulled into a truckstop. A lot of times, stopping will wake me up, and I'm always curious as to where we are. He was just filling the water tank.

I jumped off the bus and grabbed a bag of Mickey D's for me, him, and Mark Wise, who was asleep in the front lounge when I got up and woke up just as we were pulling back out.

At the hotel about 8am. Yesterday I googled 3 local coin laundramats and mapped them out. About 9:30 I head out to the closest one, just under a mile away. Not too sure about old google – nothing there. Of course, I should have called to confirm, but that takes all the fun out of it.

Head off to #2 (about ¾ mile from there), also without calling. No sweat, because if it's not there, #3 is only a few blocks further.

Coin laundry was there. Got that done, then walked 17 blocks back to the hotel with all my clean cotton.

Call David Enloe to let him know I'm in town. David's band, the Woods, was the first band I ever worked for, waaaay back in the 80's. I was a guitar tech back then. We make plans to have dinner and drinks later.

While reading the local paper, I discover that none other than Dwight Twilley (look him up) is playing tonight over in St. Paul at the Taste of Minnesota Festival. I've been a fan for 31 years and have never seen the guy. He rarely tours, or at least he sure as hell never makes it to North Carolina.

David picks me up around 4:45 and we head back to he and wife Susan's house. Sit on their deck and drink for a bit, then the four of us (her son Will came along) head to their neighborhood pizza joint, which I think was called Turtle Bread or something like that – combination bakery, hip groceries, and killer pizza restaurant.

They live in a great neighborhood. Only a block from their place is a 2-3 block stretch with bars, restaurants, stores, independent movie theatre, and more. Man, I sure wish my neighborhood had all this. Maybe one day…

About 7:45 we jump a cab to St. Paul, arriving at the festival in plenty of time for Dwight's 8:45 show. Buy lots of beer tickets and head to the stage. In the distance, we can hear Soul Asylum playing on one of the other stages, but we have no interest in seeing 'em. We're only here for Twilley.

The show was fun, but as always, I wanted him to play songs from the old days only. He played a few – "I'm On Fire", "TV", "Girls", "10,000 American Scuba Divers Dancing", but I wanted more. Glad I went, though.

Here's something for ya - the headliner here tomorrow night is David Cassidy. WTF!!!!

The fireworks following the performances were great. They lasted about 25-30 minutes and the finale was going off just as we were leaving the festival grounds.

Grab a cab back to their house and sit on the deck drinking. We make plans to go see John Hiatt at First Avenue tomorrow night. First Avenue is a club about a block from my hotel, and located directly across the street from the Target Center, the arena my tour's at on Thursday. First Avenue was made famous in Prince's movie "Purple Rain." I did my first show there in 1991 with Dillon Fence. Did a few more there sporadically over the years, most recently April 2005 during System Of A Down's guerilla club tour.

David calls me a cab around 12:30. Shows up about 15 minutes later and I'm back at the hotel at 1am.