Horse-head tour july-aug 2011

[CRAZY-HORSE]

after the morning trip to the Opry, and with directions from helpful motel staff(who,wherever we went in the US were always eager to please and help us) we found our way to downtown Nashville and sometime just after lunchtime we got to The Ryman Auditorium( Neil Young filmed his 2006 "heart of gold" on stage there), the Ryman was also the original site of the original Grand Old Opry building prior to it burning down years before, strangely enough, there was a bill poster advertising the impending concert there by Elvis Costello a few weeks down the track!the Ryman is steeped in history,not only for being the original Opry building but after it was damaged all the original Oak bench seats were reinstalled/refurbished,so the basic building was rebuilt as close to the original as possible,its a lovely little concert venue with floor and balcony seating arrangements,probably holding no more than than a couple of thousand patrons at one time and was built so every patron gets an excellant view of the stage and apparently the quality of the sound comes in second to the Morman Tabernacal place in Utah.in order to set foot on the middle of the stage at the Ryman...it cost a few bucks,but also no-one does so without either singing,dancing or performing in some way, so i took the chance and played CSNY "ohio" on acoustic guitar for the privilage...pretty sure MH thought i was stepping out from the "duo" thing to go "solo",thankfully i prefer the comfort of being on the road with the Horse-Head band and put my solo career on the backburner LOL!the temperature here was hovering just above 100F/38C at this time and it was bloody hot to come outside to after being in an airconditioned theatre...had to take this shot of a hot,bothered and weary MH after walking all day in the relentless southern heat of summer outside the Ryman...