Part Eight: Back in the SF Bay Area

Tuesday, March 11
Yoshi’s, 510 Embarcadero W., Oakland, CA

When I arrived at Yoshi’s Jazz Club at 3 pm, my tech, Jeff Ocheltree, already had my drums onstage and I helped him fine-tune the set-up. It's nice to finally be playing my own kit!

Tom arrived shortly afterwards to set-up his gear, but it turns out that his rack never made it to the San Francisco airport on yesterday's flight. He had enough gear at home to come up with a good set-up, but Tom is concerned about the whereabouts of his rack, as the airlines couldn't "find" it in the computer. Frank's gear didn’t make it either, but at about 5 pm his gear was finally delivered to his Oakland hotel by United Airlines.

Yoshi's is truly one of the best jazz clubs in the world. The stage is large, the sound-system is superb and the crew and staff took great care of us. The front part of the club is an excellent Japanese restaurant and back of the club has the stage. We did the sound-check with our "personal" sound mixer, Bob Biles, who came up from LA to mix the band. Bob engineers all of our records and most of the Tone Center records I produce -– as well my Hudson Music DVD!

We sold out the first show and the audience was very high energy and I knew a lot of the folks, since this is a "hometown" gig. The second set wasn't sold out, but it was very full, and the band got loose and we had a lot of fun with the material. We were able to leave everything setup and ready to come back and play a second night.

Wednesday, March 12
Yoshi’s, 510 Embarcadero W., Oakland, CA

I arrived at 5 pm to tune the kit and made sure everything was ready for the gig. Tom arrived shortly after with the gear from his rack, United brought it to his house at 3 am and he was quite happy to get it back. My girlfriend Diane, her son Zac and my daughter Liz came to the club early for some Japanese food before the gig and it was also "family night" for Tom. His wife Donna and their daughter Kim also came to the gig and Kim had brought her two-month-old daughter, Leamarie, with her. Tom is now a grandfather!!

John Blackwell and his wife were in the audience and we hung a little before the show. John is a funny guy and a great drummer and he had us all laughing with his many stories. We had sold out the first set and the audience was "off-the-hook" and gave us an overwhelming response. We played hard and with tonight being the last night of the tour we pushed ourselves even more and the music was special.

The second set was packed and again the audience was very into the music and gave us a lot of energy. My friend George Brooks came to the second set. George is the sax player and leader of the band Summit, the "Indian-jazz" group I play in with Zakir Hussain, Kai Eckhardt and Fareed Haque. Another group that I play many "local" gigs around the San Francisco Bay Area is the "Steve Smith/Mike Zilber Quartet" which is a straight-ahead acoustic jazz group. Mike Zilber came to the second set and we had him sit in on "Gingerbread Boy" and Mike tore it up on tenor sax. The Smith/Zilber Quartet will be touring the Canadian Jazz Festivals in late June and we'll also have Dave Liebman with us as our Special Guest.

When the gig was over and the gear packed the band talked briefly about the upcoming tour in May. We're all ready to hit the road on the East Coast and Midwest for the first two weeks of May and then move onto LA, CA for the third week of June. We will have the incredible sax player, Bill Evans, play with us for all three weeks as our Special Guest. This will be a lot of fun and we're looking forward to a rewarding tour.

This current tour has been the best Vital Information tour to date. We've been thrilled to play to many sold out houses and the fans have all been very inspiring to us. Frank will be flying back to LA on Thursday morning and Baron will head back to Boston on Thursday afternoon. We say our good-byes and look forward to hitting again soon, but we’re all happy to be heading home for a little break. (Though Tom will be leaving for Spain again on Sunday to tour Europe with Bill Evans!)

Stay tuned to www.hudsonmusic.com and www.vitalinformation.com for info on the May tour we are currently booking.

Thanks for checking out this Tour Diary. We'll see you on the road!