Road Report: "Country Music USA"

I have received a fair amount of requests to do a report for my "Country Music USA" show...more and more KEEL/RK fans are showing up here in Laughlin Nevada for these gigs since I made it public, and last night Metal Man & Pita came all the way from Pennsylvania to visit and see the show...

As I've said elsewhere, this show is a real departure from anything I've ever done, and it is a joy and a challenge. It's a big production Vegas-style show that features tributes to some of Country Music's biggest stars, and I play the role of Ronnie Dunn from Brooks & Dunn. We've got a great band behind us, and some cool stuff like an awesome video presentation on huge screens on either side of the stage, and confetti cannons...

This is my second season with the show, which runs 23 weeks a year from October through June. That still leaves me 29 weeks a year to pursue my other projects and activities. One thing I like about this gig is the structure and routine which I have never had before - my life and career have been mostly chaos, wondering where the hell I'm going next, how I'm going to get there, and what I'm going to do when I get there. This is possibly the closest thing I've had to a 'real job' since I was a teenager, but what a cool job...I love the road, but on this gig I have more time to be creative and take care of business (as opposed to driving all night, or hopping from one airport to another, having my guitars smashed by baggage handlers...)

I am here for a month now because of the holiday season (I'll be commuting to Las Vegas the next 2 weekends for the Ronnie Lee Keel shows), so I literally move into the hotel, carting in my music gear, portable office, kitchen, clothes. I always get a room as high up as possible facing Northeast (I prefer the desert view to the neon).

My day starts with coffee and ESPN, checking emails until the maid knocks on the door. While she's emptying the ashtrays and disposing of last night's beer bottles, I head down to the showroom - the 600-seat American Heroes Pavilion where each night's show takes place. During the day there's never anybody around, so I pull up a stool centerstage, grab my acoustic guitar, tape recorder, and notebook and spit out song ideas for an hour or so. There are two grand pianos which I sometimes piddle around on also, hoping someday to come up with another "Dreams Are Not Enough" or "Calm Before The Storm".

I try to get out of the hotel every day for a walk to the mall or to see a movie - saw "Casino Royale" a couple days ago, highly recomended. Every couple of days I drive over the bridge into Arizona to hit the post office and Walmart. Sometimes I'll spend an hour in the hot tub or putting golf balls on the little green by the pool. Except Sundays - I don't leave the room on Sundays during football season.

Afternoons are spent with ESPN - "NFL Live", "Jim Rome", "Around The Horn", "Pardon The Interruption" - while working on computer bidness (business) & correspondence.

3 PM is dinner time. Usually in the EDR (employee dining room) where all I have to do is swipe my card and eat whatever I want, as much as I want....24/7....gotta be careful with that...

My daily preparation for the show is very ritualized - first beer at 5 pm, bath at 6:15, out of the bath at 6:39, makeup/hair/wardrobe and then the long 2 minute walk from my room to the backstage. The show starts at 8:00 - the order is Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Brooks & Dunn, Shania Twain, Garth Brooks, and then the whole cast comes out for the finale "God Bless The USA". Then the meet & greet out front after the show, and I'm back in my room at 9:50.

And it's the same every day - so if you want another road report next month, just read this one again....

the way Ron described how his guitars have fared while flying, he should get the cases wrapped in Kevlar! What did you do to anger the baggage handlers? LOL!!!

tara

i know a little geography.. just giving suggestions for the next time you do fly! and i agree that the material that the little black boxes are made from would do just fine....if it didn't we should ALL worry about our luggage!

tara

Ronnie, thanks for the insight -- all sounds rather, um, normal to me
See you tomorrow!!!!!



Kathy/kleo



"I want you to go weak in the knees,
I want you to fall hard-core wild and crazy"

Yes, we spent last week in Vegas. We caught the Country Music USA show on Monday, Queensryche on Thursday and The RLK shows on Friday and Saturday.
Thanks again Ron for always giving us a few minutes of your time and putting up with the other half.
We had a great time and should have a few pictures to post soon.

Metalman.......glad you and Pita had a good time. Did ya get to hit any of the games inbetween those shows??

Marquette Road report

Hello everyone I see my husband has taken advantage of my down time to post before I could. For those of you who know us we haven't expanded our road trips past Ohio until now. After the Marquette Madness we discussed possibly going out to Vegas. I took advantage of my husbands love for Ron Keel's music and made arragements for a long awaited vacation. Trust me there was alot of kicking and screaming to get him to agree to the trip. We arrived in Las Vegas on 11/27 and made the road trip from Vegas to Laughlin that night to see the Country Music USA show. Everything went just as Ron posted above. It was great to see Ron on the "Big Stage" where he belongs. The rest of the week we saw the Grand Canyon where it was 26 degrees and snow on the ground, the Hoover Dam, Queensryche, and did alot of eating and walking to see the different sites on the strip. We finished off our week with the 2 RLK shows at Sam's Town. As usual, Ron sounded awesome or maybe it was all I had to drink either way we had a great time. Believe it or not we did not hit any of the games of chance I needed to save that money to pay for my bar tab Sat. We got to meet one of the new members to the site Chloroformthe1Ulove. Nice guy not at all what you would expect from the name.
However as I said above I had some down time when we got home I was feeling fine, but that night at work I started to get sick I ended up with a bad case of "Gastroenteritis" and have been down for the last 24 hrs. I am feeling better now just a little weak my husband and daughter took good care of me and we were able to avoid a trip to the ER.
Monday 11/27/06

Friday 12/1/06

Saturday 12/2/06



[Edited on 12-9-2006 by PITA]

[Edited on 12-9-2006 by PITA]

[Edited on 12-10-2006 by PITA]

I had the pleasure of catching Ron's gig with "Country Music USA" on Sunday night. I flew to Vegas (from New York) for Brooks & Dunn's 3-night performance at the Hilton and drove up (down ?) to Laughlin with three girlfriends to catch Ron's performance. We had a great time. I had seen Ron's "Ronnie Dunn" once before, but my girlfriends hadn't and were they impressed! We hung out for a couple hours after the show before making the trip back to Vegas - god, that 3 hr. time difference is killer. Any trips to the East Coast ?

From Dec. 3rd... (do I need to resize ??)



[Edited on 12-16-2006 by kleo]

[Edited on 12-16-2006 by kleo]

[Edited on 12-16-2006 by kleo]

i'm not brenda! LOL and i get the "GWTW" reference a lot, did you?....(for the record, my mom was inspired by the character that followed Emma Peel's in the Avengers TV show)

hope that you have a great time! post photos!...i'll have to post one from the Y&T show in November....

tara

Quote:

Originally posted by bassangel69 i'm not brenda! LOL and i get the "GWTW" reference a lot, did you?....(for the record, my mom was inspired by the character that followed Emma Peel's in the Avengers TV show) hope that you have a great time! post photos!...i'll have to post one from the Y&T show in November.... tara

LOL, oh I know...but you mentioned your friend Brenda...that's what I meant. And yeah, I will definitely take and post pix!!!

Ok, I haven't been to bed yet after getting back from the show! I had to figure out if I could get these pix posted now. I wasn't sure if my camera was gonna work with this computer since it isn't mine. I won't see mine til the end of the month...but it looks like it worked.

Here are some pix from the Monday night Country Christmas show. Most of them turned out too dark for some reason, so I enhanced them.









Ron, that was truely amazing. You sounded great and you stole the show, IMHO. I love the little tribute CD. It may be quite the departure from your metal days, but you have the pipes to pull it off and you do it well. And thanks for the guitar pick!

great shots!!!! i'm glad that you had a great time!

tara

Quote:

Originally posted by bassangel69 great shots!!!! i'm glad that you had a great time! tara

I had more than a great time!!! Glad the pix look ok. Yeah, My mom and I have 2 different kodak cameras so I didn't know if mine would work with her software.

I hope you do get to check out one of the shows. Just go, you won't regret it! I wish I was in Laughin right now again tonight! LOL! It was THAT good. I honestly didn't know what to expect, and I was blown away and so was my mom. (Ron, you still got it!!!) Most of my friends would have never dreamed of going with me to something like this. My old metal friends are not very open minded musically, and I most certainly am. I'm VERY greatful I'm out here right now and had the opportunity to go!

well...that just seals it! hey Ron! when are ya posting the 2007 dates?

tara

thanks! i don't go to MySpace page much...i need to change that!
tara