CTB Opens for Robin Trower

Thu, March 20, 2008

Sorry this is a bit overdue. Life has gotten way too busy. I thought things would slow down a bit by this age and it's just the opposite. 2008 is shaping up to be one of the busiest years I've had in a long time--and that's a good thing!

Last Thursday night (3/13) we had the opportunity to open for Robin Trower at one of our favorite venues, Penn's Peak, located in Jim Thorpe, PA. First of all, the venue is really nice and as it sits upon the top of mountain, it has one of the most beautiful views of any place we've played. The people who run the Peak are great to work with and are totally professional. We are always grateful when they call us to open a show. They have a cool restaurant called Roadies  that serves good food and drink and again, the peopel who run it are very cool. Check them out at www.pennspeak.com. Personal thanks goes out to Craig Stelling and the entire crew and staff at the Peak.

The audience at this show was fantastic-both for us and of, of course, for RT. I feel that Trower has always been under-rated not only as a player but as a writer as well. And at 63 (or 62--depending on who you talk with), he is still way on top of his game. After our part of the show we got front row seats for his show and I just closed my eys and was immediately transformed back to the Bridge of Sighs days. Actually, they opened with a song from the first album, the title track from Twice Removed From Yesterday,  which is one of my favs. They also played Hannah from the same album. The first part of the show Robin played it pretty safe, playing all the parts with his signature guitar sound/tone coming across beautifully.  BTW he was using two Marshall heads, an old JMP and JCM800 with two 4x12 cabs. I forgot to ask the tech what the cabs were loaded with but they were definitely some type of Celestion. The tone was awesome. I gotta say he that up front as we were, he sounded just like he does on the albums. It was really nice to hear that age hasn't slowed him down as he stretched it out a bit as the set wore on. Of course he did all the favs like Bridge of Sighs, Day of the Eagle, etc. and Too Rolling Stoned. The only song I missed hearing was Daydream, but I'm not complaining.

Anyway, it was a great show and we want to thank RT and crew for being so kind to us--they even invited us to have dinner with them in their dressing room, which was very cool. I emailed Derek, their road manager, after the show and thanked him and mentioned that we'd love the opportunity to do this again sometime. He responded back by saying RT's "next tour would be in 2010--can we wait that long"? Just give us a couple weeks' notice Derek and we'll be there!

— Craig

 



 
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