9/18/09 Granada Theater, Lawrence, KS (with Victor Wooten!)

Night number two with Victor Wooten started out with polite complaining to the Days Inn staff about our disgusting hotel rooms (and their subsequent promise to refund the points we used to pay for them...yes!) and then a long sleepy drive down to Lawrence Kansas.

A nice change from the previous night at the cramped and sweaty Picador, the Granada Theater is a spacious room with a great sound system and it was good to be back. We arrived to find Vic jamming out on stage with three of his kids: 8-yr-old Adam on the drumkit, and his 6 and 11 year old daughters on vocals....musicianship definitely runs in the family!

We got set up and soundchecked, and the crowd filed in as soon as the doors opened, vying for their spot at the front of the stage to get close enough to study Victor's technique...though I pretended it was for me. :) We were instructed to hit right at 9pm sharp, and it was a little nerve-wracking waiting backstage and counting down those final minutes before heading out to face that bass-critiquing crowd. The show went off without a hitch, though, and I felt good about the impression we made on this crowd of mostly new faces for us.

Victor hit the stage thereafter, throwing in a few of the same tricks from the night before, but the sound and sightline were so much better at this venue that it made even the repeats enjoyable. He gave yet another shout out to us, introducing FGC as one of his favorite bands and adding, "What would Janis do? That is the question." I was also completely entertained by Vic and JD Blair's freakin' hilarious on-stage banter -- JD in particular is such a goofball. Plus, as I hoped, Victor brought out his kids to play the tune they were going over in soundcheck. The kids didn't seem at all fazed by the crowd of several hundred people, and the 8-year-old drummer especially was a real treat to watch.

Post-show, we hung out with Victor a bit, and once again, I'm so pleasantly surprised by what a genuine and down-to-earth person he is. We then made the 45 minute drive to our hotel in Kansas City, where we settled into our cushy free rooms at the Sheraton with the best "Do Not Disturb" signs I have ever seen: