What fun it was to play with Francesca Amari this afternoon at the 2009 Grand Rapids Festival of the Arts! And how nice to finally NOT get rained and hailed out. High clouds moved in, thickened and threatened and lenta somewhat somber feeling, but never produced so much as a solitary raindrop.

We played at the main stage by the massive, bright orange Alexander Calder stabile, “La Grande Vitesse,” which is the massive and graceful icon of Grand Rapids. Our 45-minute set included tunes from Francesca’s DVD Better Days, plus jazz standards such as “Fly Me to the Moon” and my own feature tune, “My Funny Valentine.” Our bass player, Dave DeVos, had another gig at the festival and was much missed. But Wright McCargar did a stellar job filling in the bottom end, a job no keyboard player relishes because of the limitations it imposes, but which serves when there’s no bassist.

I was pleased to see my mother and sister, Diane,  out there in the audience. It’s such a blessing to have their support.

So…now the festival is behind me, and I’m preparing myself to head for Nebraska in pursuit of storms. Looks like fellow Michigan storm chaser Mike Kovalchick will be joining me. We’ve got a long drive ahead of us. Sometime tomorrow, we’ll hook up Bill, Tom, Kurt, and a friend of Bill’s. The last time I chased was May 13. I am ready and raring, and I hope the weather roars. The SPC shows a 30 percent area in tomorrow’s outlook, mostly in Iowa.  The 18Z NAM suggests a more western play, but maybe that’ll change.

Right now, storms look like they may have initiated northwest of Des Moines, but what I’m seeing doesn’t look like much–yet. I’m about ready to reboot GR3 and take another look. The guys drove all night to make the play today. I hope they score big. But I have an idea that tomorrow is going to be the main act. And then there’s Monday. I’ll be really curious to see whether the Great Lakes gets the kind of weather the NAM has been suggesting.