The End Of The Affair

Saturday night saw us bid joyously sad farewells to Tweedy & Co. Jeff, Spencer, band and crew could not have been better to us and we send heartfelt thanks and love as they play their way back home to Chicago. The gorgeous Ellie Caulkins Opera House in Denver was the scene of our last stand, and both bands rose to the occasion, like the giant retractable light fixture in the center of the mile-high ceiling. It all came to a close with Peter, Linda, Michael and me onstage with the two Tweedymen, Jim, Liam, Darin and Sima, for a ramshackle celebratory 'California Stars'. (Bringing back sweet memories of a similar scene with R.E.M./Wilco at Red Rocks many years ago...). Huge thanks to Jeff's longtime front of house mixer Stan Doty for taking his precious time to sound check and mix us every night, and simply for a superb job giving the mighty music of both groups its best opportunity to shine in any and all type of venue. And huge gratitude to merchmeister Andy Nemcik for making our lives easier in that regard. And tour manager Eric Frankhauser (a childhood neighbor of the Buck family in Roswell GA!), plus super-techs Nate, Jared, Josh, and Mattrix for all their assistance. Quite simply and obviously, we couldn't have done it without you. And Liam Cunningham - for your nightly troubles adding keys to our set finales, you'll soon be enshrined in the Those Who Serve section.

Without pause to catch even a gasp of pure backstage oxygen, Linda, John Hill and I careen to Athens, picking up Steve Wynn and Mike Mills and magically morphing into the Baseball Project for a weeklong spring training tour in Florida. Details elsewhere.