Heyhey In Rockers

Sitting in my hotel room in San Francisco, California, leaving soon for another show on the 47 date Matchbox 20 / Goo Goo Dolls tour as it makes it's way across North America. Hope you all are having a great summer, mine has been pretty great so far, my daughter Hana and my wife Miyoko were able to join me a few times on this many month long tour and are out with me right now! Nothing compares to the look on an 18 month olds face as she watches the inner workings and end results of a big rock tour!

The guys from Matchbox 20 have been awesome as we enter our 2nd month of this 3 month long tour giving great shows night after night and leaving crowds across the country with the memories of a full evening of rock. We've done shows all across the US from the East Coast to the West with crowds of thousands on hand enjoying the summertime. The opening act on our tour is an artist named Kate Earl, she is out with her band and also has her 3 year old son out with her on the tour!

Most of the shows on the tour have been at outdoor amphitheaters across the USA, 's such a great vibe having the bands playing outdoors on a beautiful summer evening (and some rainy ones as well, but the show MUST go on!).

Some of the highlights of the tour so far include a friend of mine making an onstage marriage proposal during a performance our newest single from out Magnetic album called ''Come to Me'' (And I guess I should add that his girlfriend said YES!), a huge fireworks display in Chicago as well as having MB20 singer Rob Thomas join us onstage for a lively version of Tom Petty's American Girl. We also had a chance to play the Gibson Amphitheater in Los Angeles one more time before it's closing at the end of this concert season, it's always been such a great venue, it will surely be missed but I'm glad we got to perform there one last time!

While performing in Chicago we also had a visit from Scott Murphy from the band Allister and the Japanese language pop band Scott and Rivers (with Rivers Cuomo from Weezer). We had never met before but during my last trip to Japan we had discovered the Scott and Rivers album, found him on twitter and invited him to the in Chicago when we were passing through town. We had a great visit and talked about our experiences in Japan and our fascination with all things Japanese. I've included a picture from backstage that we took that evening. We ended up doing 3 sold out shows at Ravinia Amphitheater, we've never seen crowds that size in Chicago, it feels good after coming to the area for over 25 years.

The MB20/GGDS/Kate Earl concert takes a break for a few days after the SF show and we head to Los Angeles where our singer John is getting married in Malibu. The band, friends and family are getting together from all over the US to celebrate the day. We'll then have a couple of days off (I'll return home to Buffalo for a day for a quick visit with my cats Gus and Chibi) and then We'll be rejoining the tour for another month of dates and more awesome rock shows.

Coming up we have shows in places like Texas, Alabama and Virginia as well as coming back to NYC and Buffalo, NY for a hugely anticipated hometown show! The summer tour winds up in September and after short break from GGDS (including the Annual ''Music is Art Festival''in Buffalo) we meet up with the band again and head to the UK for a short tour and more dates to come !!!!! Hope you have a great month and we'll be talking again soon !!!!

Peace

Robby