US Foxtrot 2024 Tour blog 3 - Watching the Skies - April 2024

From Minneapolis, we continued on down to Madison, a lovely town beside a beautiful lake where we played to another fantastic crowd. It was then great to get back to Chicago, where audience and band together totally hit the roof!

We had an extraordinary experience in our next stop, Chesterfield (near St Louis)... A hurricane built up with driving sleet, massive hail stones crashing against the windows, thunder roaring and lightning flashing. And then the hotel's loud tornado alarm went off and we all had to stand in the interior corridors to avoid possible smashed windows, and worse!

Luckily, people were unscathed, buildings remained intact and we all headed on across the Prairie landscape to Kansas City after the gig. Both the Chesterfield and Kansas City shows had an altogether wonderful vibe.

Then we headed on down to Texas, where I played for the first time in many years. The audiences in Dallas, Austin and Stafford were all amazing and we were thrilled to play to them! Above the flat landscape, we all could for sure see that big Dallas sky which once inspired a song of mine as we travelled along...

In Austin we all saw the Eclipse. It was extraordinary to see the sky darkening with street lights coming on as the moon literally eclipsed the sun.. Continuing the sky watching, whilst staying in Stafford, a group of us visited the NASA Johnson Space Centre, Houston, which was fascinating. Jo and I with our pal Nancy also visited Galveston as I love that Jimmy Webb song, and it felt great to have lunch near the sea.

As always, many thanks to Brian, Adrian and Wayne, and also to our pal, gig and festival organiser Jim, who has now driven us for so many miles on this tour from Florida all the way up north to Minneapolis and then down to the edge of the Caribbean.

From sea to desert... We're now all looking forward to the Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona shows!