Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Tonight Show w Billy Ray

Only two weeks after doing the Tonight Show with Miley, we were back with Billy Ray. Felt like we never left.


This time we were indoors, which was much warmer.


The night's guests:

I had a nice conversation with Kristin after the show. What a sweet gal.

Jaco IS Neil Young

This was the last Tonight Show with Jay Leno we'll ever do, as Jay is done in June. But maybe someday we'll be on the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien... I can only hope!



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Saturday, April 25, 2009

Cider Farm II: The Chickening

During my last visit to Washington, Noah and I returned to the cider farm. Only, this time, he knew the names of all the animals, instead of calling them all "puppy."



"More bunnies! Hi bunnies!"

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Thursday, April 23, 2009

Fun with Camera

Sometimes it's more fun to have a conversation through the lens of a camera.


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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Elevator Game

Noah really loved working the elevator at the hotel. He would say, "uh-gate-uh," and we would run down the hall, push the button, get in and go somewhere.

Except this time was different.

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Monday, April 20, 2009

The Post-Premiere Nashville Bash

A couple hundred lucky superfans won tickets to the Nashville premiere of the Hannah Montana movie, and afterwards, they were bussed out to the Country Music Hall of Fame, where we put on a surprise concert of surprising awesomeness.

Here's the setlist:

You may have noticed some special guests. In addition to Billy Ray and Miley, we were joined by Sheryl Crow, Jeffrey Steel and Ed King.

Sheryl did a duet version of "Real Gone" (which she wrote) with Billy Ray, and we played her hit, "If It Makes You Happy", which was a total blast. Total pro, that one. Then we all rushed her for pictures:

L to R: Me, Sheryl, niece Ava


Sara, Sheryl, Carmel

Those are our new background singers, by the way.

We played Sweet Home Alabama with Ed King, the dude that wrote it. And after hearing countless awful bar bands play it, it was pretty mindblowing to hear his authentic version.

Jeffrey Steele has co-written several of Miley's tunes, including "Simple Song", which we played with him, and then we jammed on his song, "Hollywood Girl", which has been a favorite of Miley's since she was very little.

A lot of this stuff was put together at the last minute, so the band spent most of our day at the hotel, learning all these new songs. I actually kinda like it when they throw that kind of stuff at us.

After the show, I hung out with Mai, one of Miley's makeup people. I always love when Mai shows up. What a sweetheart.

Then we hopped on a plane and came home.

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Saturday, April 18, 2009

Dances with Goldfish

Noah's new thing on this visit was his obsession with the camera. He loved watching himself on the monitor, and I rarely got much footage before he started pointing at the camera and saying "Noah! Noah! I want to watch it!"

Here he is dancing and trying to grab the camera:

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Noah's 1st Guitar Lesson

I finally had some time to edit the Noah videos from my last trip to Washington. Here is Noah's first guitar lesson:

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Good Morning America

We were taping at the Hard Rock in Times Square. I think this was the first time we've ever played in a restaurant. Also, the first time I've ever been in a Hard Rock at 7am. Hopefully the last.

Soundcheck went very smoothly; no major disasters.

And suddenly the place filled up with Billy Ray and Miley fans.






What time again?

What in the world was Diane Sawyer saying at the beginning? "A huge hit off the tack?"



And Schmid Island got more camera time than ever.





Then we busted out a new track.

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Thursday, April 16, 2009

AOL Sessions

You can see video of the Billy Ray/Miley AOL Sessions show HERE.

Setlist:
The Climb
Full Circle
Butterfly
Back to Tennessee

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Friday, April 10, 2009

Miley on Leno

We had the privilege of playing the last-ever outdoor concert on Leno. To celebrate, there was a backstage ice cream bar. It's all about the little things.

We came:


We soundchecked:


We conquered:


And then we waited:

Then we played "The Climb"



Followed by an internet-only performance of "Full Circle"

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Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Noah Visit

Adorable videos coming soon (as soon as I have time to edit them), but here are a few pictures from my last Noah visit in Washington:



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Monday, April 6, 2009

L.A. Premiere

The L.A. premiere of the Hannah Montana movie was a big success. I didn't get to see the whole thing, cause we were getting ready to do our thang in the dressing room, but what I did see was very fun and entertaining, and we were all commenting on how gorgeously-shot the movie is.

As the movie ended, the screen lifted, smoke poured out and Miley surprised everyone with a concert.

Here are some pics from our rehearsal with the orchestra:





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Sunday, April 5, 2009

You Can Still Watch

The RawRhythms show was a lot of fun. The always lovely Molly Jenson even stopped by.

You can see the show in its entirety here.

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