Nebraska is cold.

We had our first show of the tour last night. As promised, the set was long. The crowd seemed pretty into it, which was helpful, and was very forgiving of our few mistakes. All in all, though, it went much more smoothly than I had expected.

My set was really fun. I feel honored to get to sing the songs I do in this set, and to have such a great group of musicians backing me up. It felt like we were on the same page and it let us be free to spend a little bit of time exploring.

We've been driving for a good long while, it's almost noon and it looks like we're just pulling off the interstate here in Nebraska.

Thanks to everybody who came to last night's show. I'd love to hear your thoughts about it, what you liked, what could have been better. Oh, and if you have any good photos of the show, send them here and I'll post them.

I think we've sold out, or close to it, tonight, so I'm looking forward to that. After the Caedmon's show I'll also be doing a short solo set at Grace Chapel, 4000 Sheridan Blvd. here in Lincoln. Love to see you there! Thanks again everybody, and I'll try to get some pictures up soon.

it's that time again...

Time for photos of tour rehearsal! The bus will roll tonight and we'll have a few more hours of running through tunes before we have to break stuff down and get it loaded up.

These first few shows will be LONG. Just so you know. We're having trouble cutting songs, so we're just not going to for a while. I hope that's ok.

All right, on to the photos...

Here are my amps...


My guitars...


The new Strat...


A G&L Tele Josh, our assistant at Sputnik, is letting me borrow until my new one gets in...


A crazy hodge-podge of a pedalboard that will probably look fairly different every night, until I get my new one up and running...


Todd got a new drum kit...


Garett likes his tablas...


Harold, our sound guy (who is awesome)...


Josh, running lights...


And, because you can never forget who you really are...


See you on the road!

Waiting around

I'm at a place called Soundcheck, setting up for the Caedmon's tour. The first day is just putting things in their place, plugging stuff in, checking levels, making sure everything is working. Tomorrow we'll actually start playing songs.

That will be much more fun than today. Today has basically been just waiting around; the kind of waiting around that means you can't leave because they're always just about to need you.

Although, I did meet a guy named Ed Beaver today, who did wonderful things to my new Strat. (I should add here that he's a guitar repair guy in the Soundcheck complex.)

When I get out of here Alison and I are going on a date. I don't know where, but I'm excited. I really like her. She's really pretty and I think this relationship could go somewhere.

Ah, Saturday...

Ah, Saturday... Ella and Alison are at the library for a ballet performance, Ella is very excited, and Sadie is fast asleep in her crib. It's quiet, I made a few phone calls but there's nothing pressing on the To Do List that I could do right now, even if I wanted to.

It's good.

I want to go read one of my nerdy books and fall asleep, but that will obviously be a sign to Sadie that she should wake up, so it would be pointless. Alas, here I am, updating the ol' blog.

Thursday night's performance at the Covenant School was really fun. At about 4:45 I called my neighbor Paul, one of the finest drummers I have ever known, and said "Hey, do you want to play a show with me tonight?"

"Uh, I guess," he said. "What time?"

"I'll pick you up in ten minutes."

It was actually fifteen, but I like to keep people on their toes. Paul did wonderfully and really helped me out with his rhythmic genius. I played about ten tunes, told some stories, and we had a good time. Danny and the people there were all incredibly kind and welcoming. This and the fact that the venue was THREE turns from my house, made it a pretty great show. Thanks to everybody who came out.

Yesterday was the last business day before Caedmon's rehearsals start and so I was bouncing between meetings, phone calls, and frantic gear-putting-together sessions.

Bad news: The free EP cd's may not be done in time for the first one or two shows. Good news: The t-shirts should. Bad news: I won't have my new pedalboard set up for the first run of shows. Good news: I'm still pretty stoked about the current setup.

In other news, God has been good to me the past few days. (I suppose I should say He always is, but it doesn't always feel that way. Right now it does.) He's shown up in some very unexpected and wonderful ways.

I had gotten to the point with some things where I knew I had gone as far as I could go. I would fail and things would crumble unless something supernatural happened. I started to find a bit of freedom and joy in that, surprising as it was to me. And then something supernatural happened. I may tell you about it more specifically someday, though I doubt it, but I will tell you that it's real and I'm grateful.

And finally, to clue you in on what else is going on here at the Osenga house: We've been playing THIS COMPUTER GAME this morning.