What can I say? There have been shows played. I'd say the pinnacle weekend so far was the Columbia, Huntington and Richmond run. Everyone seemed rather satisfied with their singing, playing, production & crowds. I tend to agree with them. The new show has finally left the 'learning to walk' stage & leaped into olympic sprinting. Comfort is there. When comfort appears, risks get taken... & THAT's when the real special stuff appears. Enough of the poetic wax of our live show.

This past week was a doozy. The crew & I landed in Vegas on Wednesday. Lots of prep for our most recent gauntlet. Long rehearsal/camera blocking day on Saturday. Sunday was EPIC. You see, at these award shows, they do individual song camera blocking the day before (that's where the TV directors decide what cameras get what shots during the course of the song). Then, the DAY of the show, they do a run through of the WHOLE show in real time.

So our Sunday went like this: report at 10am. They run the show starting at 10:45am. Both of our performances & such. Then you eat a late lunch. Red carpet. Then the REAL show starts at 5pm PST. Same thing... the show runs its course. Then we waited 20 minutes for our crew to RESET the stage. We played an entire set... finishing around 10:30pm. THEN, we went to the House of Blues in Mandalay Bay & had our after party... which was actually really cool... although we were all EXHAUSTED.

So we played "Keep Me In Mind" early in the broadcast & "Whiskey's Gone" with Brad Paisley sitting in later in the broadcast. The only way I can describe Brad's mastery of the telecaster is like that bag from "American Beauty." There's a scene in that movie where a plastic bag gets caught in a wind gust & never stops or hits the ground. His playing is like that: it just flows over the music... never ending phrases that never get dull. Cool dude too.

Anyway, I'm NEVER allowed to talk about our new record... but tomorrow we're doing a photo shoot for it. I'd imagine that I can AT LEAST say that.

Lots of craziness to come & please have a safe & happy Easter weekend.

Caio!

Clay

Images of the Zac Brown Band on the red carpet, backstage and live at the
ACM Fan Jan are here!