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SAN DIMAS CALIFORNIA 9 JANUARY 2002 by Sue Grout  Montana’s is a great country-dance place in San Dimas, CA. (As in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure!). It has a 2,000 square foot dance floor and a large stage. Jodi and her husband came up from Irvine. And Andrea (Craig Power’s sister) and her mother came too. Julie was there and lots of my ‘line dance’ friends. I had also given tickets for Christmas presents (tickets were only $15 here, compared with ($30 to $47 at Crazy Horse.) Even my 84-year-old mother-in-law came. Her review – he has a good voice – but it’s not her kind of music. She had fun watching everyone dance. I had family and friends there - I also had non-country, “Hal-who?” friends there. I think everyone had a good time. Briefly met Samantha who, along with her sister Kristen are big fans. Heard that Hal is working on a new album - should be completed in approx. 6 months. "Millionaires Wife" and "Run Loretta Run" will be on it. Don't know when the expected release date is - with Curb don't hold your breath!! We'll hope this one goes smoothly for Hal. Bill Cooley is still playing lead guitar for Hal and Christopher Nieto "the Raging Bull of percussion" is still on the drums. Hal's regular bass player, Keith Carper, isn't with Hal for these January dates - he's "taking a break" and will be joining back up with Hal in June. The bass player with Hal at Montana's is Jerry Gillespie - who did a fine job, however, we missed Keith's harmonies on songs like "Long Way Down" and "Too Many Memories". My son, Dan, and his fiancé, Robbin, got to Montana's a little late and had to park in the alley behind the Boot Barn - when they went out to their car, guess who they ran into...I think Robbin is a new fan!! Daniel said he passed by at first & saw Hal talking to someone in the band or crew. He went back and asked him if he could take a picture for his Mom, …”you know, the one with the light-up, twirly sign!” He said OK, smiled and gave the peace sign, so that was COOL! Would love it if this were a permanent stop on Hal's tour schedule in the future!!! At Bluewater I was able to get a quick question in to Doug, who is Hal’s “sometimes” road manager. I asked him how he thought Montana’s went and if they treated them well, any complaints? He said they were treated very well there, had no complaints that he could think of. Mary Kay & I went to Montana’s on Weds. (1/17) for dancing & I asked Danny (a manager) there how he thought it went, would they have Hal back again? He said from their standpoint it went very well & they would love to have him back. That Hal was very nice… he filled the house….holds 700, there were 650 people there. I mentioned that unless you were standing down on the dance floor, that several people had mentioned the sound wasn’t great. He said they know, that they had some problems at the beginning of the show, they thought they had it fixed, then toward the end it got bad again. He said they had been through 3 boards in 3 weeks, and that if they were going to start getting the bigger singers in, they would have to invest in a system.  Sue's Photos. Julie's Photos. Montana's Official Site. |