Wow, what a day. In the 18-hour period from 10 pm Tuesday June 7 to 4 pm June 8, KEEL & WAYNE did no less than THREE gigs. That may be a record for me.

For those who may not know, this week is the annual CMA Music Festival in Nashville - the busiest week of the year for this town and for the singers and musicians who live here. It's absolute mayhem, and everybody who's anybody is here this week performing, doing meet & greets, fan club parties, you name it.

Tuesday night was the Western Beat CMA Music Festival Kickoff Party at the Exit-In - this was my third time this year doing this gig, once as Charlie Wayne's special guest, then with IronHorse, and this time as KEEL & WAYNE.

The place was packed to the rafters, and hot as hell - what air conditioning they had, wasn't working, but no one seemed to mind. We hit the stage and poured it on, and it was amazing - the sound was killer, the band was tight, Charlie & I were in the zone, right at home on the stage and in our songs. It was a beautiful thing.

We were joined at the end of the show by two of Country Music's brightest new stars - Blake Shelton ("Some Beach", "Austin", "The Baby", "Goodbye Time", etc.) and Miranda Lambert ("Me & Charlie Talking"). The host of the event, Billy Block, also got up and played drums with us - We did the classic "Crawdad Song", the place went nuts, we got stupidly wild, and it was a wonderful magic moment...that's one of the cool things about living in Nashville, you never know who you're going to run into or end up jamming with.

Gotta thank our backing band - CJ Wayne on drums, Tisha Simeral on bass, and Muzik Mafia alumni Gary Summers on fiddle, they all did an amazing job and sounded perfect.

It was early to rise the next morning, with a 9 am acoustic show & meet & greet at the Ernest Tubb Record Shop at the Nashville Airport. We did two 45 minute sets, welcoming folks who were arriving in Nashville for this week's CMA Music Festival. This was a blast, and I'm glad my wife Lindsey finally got to meet Charlie and see us sing together!

After this, it was off to BB King's (a club downtown) to film an episode of "Rock 4Xmas On The Road". We hooked up with our friend and fellow outcast Danny Vaughn, former lead vocalist with Tyketto & Waysted - Danny is a great guy, killer singer and musician, and we'll be doing some tour dates together in August & September, so we all joined up for the TV taping. The show is syndicated on over 100 stations nationwide, and is promoting the "Rock 4Xmas" tour that I'll be doing (along with 2 busloads of other artists) from November 1-December 11. We did an excellent interview segment that was at times brutally honest and deep, and at other times absolutely hilarious (my cell phone rang in the middle of the interview, and I pretended it was Tony Iommi from Black Sabbath asking me to rejoin the band). Then we did an acoustic performance on stage for the cameras, with Charlie & I doing some of our KEEL & WAYNE favorites, and Danny joining us for 'Shooting Star' & 'Can't Find My Way Home'.

To Danny's dismay, the ****tails for this portion of our day were on the house - thanks SO much to the staff at BB King's!!! - and Charlie & I had no trouble assuming our usual positions (belly up to the bar)...not wanting to scare Danny out of touring with us, we went easy on him, but it was a celebration to say the least.

After dropping Danny off, Charlie & I went over the the Hall Of Fame Lounge, had a few beers, and passed around some guitars with a few of our songwriter buddies. What a great day, and a great time.

Today I have time to kick back, recuperate, catch up on stuff, and get ready for the climax of our week - the KEEL & WAYNE Fan Club Party on Music Row tomorrow (Friday June 10), from 3-6 pm, you know the details - if not, you can find 'em elsewhere on this forum or on our web site. We'll let you know how it turns out.

Blake Shelton and Meranda lambert were awesome! Ron is right, we had a total blast! We were in the zone, and Keel and Wayne rocked the house. It was cool to see us seel out the biggest venue in Nashville, as far as clubs go, anyway. Keel and Wayne is certainly magic, and we will continue to bring this quallity show to every venue that has electricity, to a town near you. You never know who will be on stage with us. i want to thank Blake and Meranda once more, for their support to Keel and Wayne. For those of you that live near Nashville, we hope to see you at the fan club party tomorrow, June 10. You never know who might join us for that as well. Keel and wayne is full of suprises. see ya then.

HEY CHARLIE
DOES THAT MEAN YOU ARE GONNA COME TO MY TOWN HAHAHAHA!

Sounds like you guys did awsome!!! Thats why Katie and I love NASHVILLE!! IT ALWAYS ROCKS! Glad to here the week is going good, I think we have been to a few places were you gotten to play this week! A few that we haven't been to, we will put them on our list!

BE SAFE and HAVE FUN,

Sounds like you had a great time and alot of fun!! Im glad it went well for you and Charlie!!!!

Ron & Charlie I'll see ya tomorrow! It's gonna be a blast!

[Edited on 6-9-2005 by metalhead]

I am so happy things went well for you guys it sounds like you had fun Wish i could be there love you both !!

Well, another day at the office...but I LOVE MY JOB...

Today's KEEL & WAYNE Fan Club Party on Music Row in Nashville TN was a great time, a wonderful experience and a memory that I'll carry with me always. There were so many good friends and family and fans there, if I tried to thank you all I'd surely forget some...so just THANK YOU ALL for being there and sharing this special occasion with us.

In 1979, I made the move to Nashville, and rented an apartment about a stone's throw from where today's event took place. If a crystal ball had told me that 25 years later I'd have been where I am today, doing what I'm doing, right around the block from where it all started for me, I certainly wouldn't have believed it...(I didn't even expect to live this long, much less still be living this dream)...From the bottom of my heart, I thank all of you who have enabled me to be who I am, do what i do, and llive the life I love.

HI I am so glad that things went well sounds like you guys did a great job and had fun. Well we miss you guys in Ohio so come back PLEASE !!! very soon . XXXOOOO Tracey

I am so happy and glad that things went well for you!!! We miss you here so as Tracey just said, COME BACK HOME SOON!!!!!!!!!! XO XO XO