I’ve been fortunate enough recently to share the stage with some very cool bands on the national scene. As you may recall, a couple months ago we opened for Nine Days. Last night was a similar situation, but this time around, we only opened up for one day. Howie.

The 10,000 Hours organization, a volunteer group based in Iowa, was good enough to invite us to play at their annual event at the IMU in Iowa City. In the past they’ve had acts like Ben Folds, Guster, and Girl Talk, to name a few. This year Howie Day headlined, and we got to warm the crowd up for him.

If you’ve followed this blog at all in the past, you know well that the Tim Stop Trio loves to play in Ames. I’ve been very excited about the chance to play in Iowa City, home of my Hawkeyes, and I was crossing my fingers that it would be as much fun as playing for the folks in Ames (who are always so awesome, although sometimes violent). Thankfully, IC came through. So I now am an Iowan who loves Iowa City as much as Ames. That’s a hopeless paradox.

We came to IC as an actual trio, which is rare, and played acoustic. Here’s our set:

Malaga
New Acoustic (Gotta work on a name for this song. One night I played it and some girl yelled that I should name it Julie. This song doesn’t really talk about anyone named Julie. I think she’s just being selfish.)
I Got a Woman (Ray Charles cover)
Torn Apart
Professional
Sunday Muerning (Maroon 5 cover)
Normal
Love it or Leave it

I know that’s not how you spell ‘morning’. But every once in a while, I’ll throw in a ‘ue’ where an ‘o’ or ‘ou’ belongs. I know that probably makes little sense to you, but it’s a shout out out to my old band ‘Fourth’, which somewhere along the line got changed to ‘Fuerth’. You wouldn’t believe how funny changing those vowels can be.

Got to watch Howie Day afterwards, who sounded great. Really strong voice. I guess now all we have to do is open up for Green Day and we’ll pretty much be set. Why do I not see that happening?

Don’t forget, IC. We’re coming right back on Thursday, April 22 to play at Gabe’s. See you there!