9/23/00 - Delawareness

Hello from Philadelphia,

We stayed here last night after performing in Delaware. Beautiful, historic Philadelphia is a little drizzly this morning, but no one is complaining.

The changing of seasons evokes all kinds of sentimental feelings. You can't help noticing it today. Looking out the window when I rolled out of bed this morning I strained my eyes to see through the tree tops, looking for the brass band I thought I could hear rehearsing down below. At first I thought maybe I was still half asleep and imagining it, but when I looked around the square, I saw red white and blue bunting being draped over a VIP viewing are for what is obviously going to be a parade. It feels so East Coast here. Lawrence is soaking ut up, this being his first time here. Canadians are taught a great deal of American history in school and Philadelphia is a certainly a centerpiece. He also climbed the steps to the museum where Rocky Balboa stood in the famous scene from "Rocky I." Not even the rain can discourage the mood in Philadelphia this morning.

Last night we played "Sing For The Day" as well as "Love Is The Ritual" and both songs get stronger as we go. Each are of particular significance because of how familiar SFTD is to most fans, despite the fact that in 22 years, it has been performed 4 times. It is growing a vibe it never enjoyed in all its dormant years. LOTR is a beast. It is already a deep, phat groove that is a stone cold treat to play live. Interesting in that it was a single from the 1991 STYX release "Edge Of The Century" which was Glen's maiden voyage on the good ship STYX. I was busy being a Damn Yankee. It was never intended as a song Glen and I BOTH would be performing, but as fate would have it, here we are now. There is not a song in our set we don't enjoy performing, but these two newcomers can't help but being our favs at the moment.

It was a perfect night under the stars in Wilmington (in all our years of touring, none of us had ever played a show in Delaware. We can now claim having performed in all 50 states including Alaska). It was a gigantic night club, was outdoors and on the water. Man, clubs have come a long way!

For everyone there, I don't have to tell you how magic it was. It is hard to explain, but the weather, the location and the mood of the crowd made it one of those dig-down-deeper-than-usual nights. My fingers are sore today, and that hasn't happened in ages.

Gotta run and do some interviews for the DVD that's coming this Christmas!

See you in Trenton...