And the Winner is...

After 2 days of rest coming off our Colorado tour, we headed down South for 3 shows in San Luis Obispo, Bakersfield, and Sunnyvale. They all went pretty well and in Sunnyvale we got to play with our friends, The Animations, with whom we haven't seen or done a show with for a long time (I used to work with Beau at Granite Construction). Below is a video I shot of them covering Bohemian Rhapsody. It's really crappy sound quality, but you get the idea (I love their version of the song).

We drove home after the Sunnyvale show and got back at 4:00 A.M., slept until about noon, then at 3:30 P.M. headed downtown to the Sacramento News & Review's Musicfest celebration. It was about 103 degrees out at 6:30 when we played, but it was tolerable and we were pretty much flawless (we have been playing almost every day for the last 2 months, so we should have the kinks worked out by now!). We included "Billie Jean" in our 4 song set since Michael Jackson died the other day and the crowd was really responsive to it. We also got a lot of good feedback from people and it was great exposure for us.

At 8:00 P.M. they started announcing the winners of this year's Sammie Awards. For the second year in a row, we won the Readers' Choice award for Outstanding Reggae/Ska/Funk/Jam band!! Thanks to all of you who voted - we won because of your support! It feels good to get home after a tour, but it feels even better to get home and receive an award!

Now we have a few weeks off before our next tour starts (with a couple local shows between now and then), so I may not post a new blog for a while unless something cool or crazy happens. Have a happy (and safe) 4th of July and remember to remember why we celebrate it. God Bless America.

Video of The Animations (Beau & Shawn)

A quick shot of the crowd in front of the main stage at SN&R's Musicfest. There were about 4x as many people in the beer garden!

Ben eats a sno-cone, then does his best impression of a drunk albino smurf.

Matt does his impression of a guy in a band that just won a Sammie.