Dave Arcari: Scotland's alt.blues troubadour

Sunday 14 October 2018

Montrose Saloon, Chicago….

IT’S snowing when we wake up in Winona…and we’ve a good five hour drive to Chicago ahead.

We pack up, say cheerio to Ken and hit the road, stopping at Perkins for some breakfast.

The weather eases up and we take turns driving, arriving at our pals Mark and Nan’s just after 5pm.

Load in at Montrose Saloon is 7pm, so we’ve time for a catch up before we head down there. We dump the gear and go in search of food, find a pizza place nearby and take it back to the venue where John Ballantyne’s Crazy Heart have just started their set.

We bump into PR man August Forte who has helped me out with some PR and media stuff in the past but we’d never met…Eric from the venue had him do some promo on tonight’s show. Hey;s done a grand job and it’s great to meet him and hang out.

After a quick change over I hit the stage for 70-minute-or-so set and have a blast. The PA struggles a bit to start with, but Eric’s on the case and we have a great time…the place is pretty crammed and everyone seems to be having a great time and in the spirit of things.

Its nice to see so many of our Chicago pals out…Nan and Mark go back to the house after show and give us a key to get in once we’ve finished packing up and loading out. A grand night 🙂

That’s been 11 shows in row – gonna be nice to have a couple days off…