Paul Thorn Band The Orange Peel Asheville. NC Thursday, October 22, 2015
It was a beautiful night for a drive up the
mountain to Asheville, and my friend Hal Stewart picked me up here in Spartanburg and we hit I-26 North. Before you could say “Dr. Love” we were in downtown Asheville. With plenty of time before the doors opened, we went looking for dinner, and found the perfect place right there on Biltmore Ave., just a block or so from the Orange Peel. Doc Chey’s served up some fine noodles and we both had plenty to carry home as well.
never found the people he was to meet, so he told me later that they had food catered in. This was my first ever visit to The Orange
Peel, although I had attempted to come up several times in the past. When we got there, there was a short line of folks already lined up outside waiting for the doors to open at 7:00. I went up to the will-call window and the nice girl behind the window gave me our guest list passes, then I returned to the line where Hal and I met several nice people. There was one lady there who had seen Paul 45 times. A real fan. One of the young ladies who works there
cane up to me and said, “Hi Buffalo,” and proceeded to tell me how Paul and his road manager/songwriting partner Billy Maddox had reserved a table for me and my guest. How cool. Once inside, I was really impressed with
the size of the place and the layout. Hal and I sat at our designated table, and started meet- ing people right away. Paul Thorn fans are al- ways a friendly lot, and while he draws all ages, it seems there are a lot of folks of my generation at the shows. I met a few nice folks who knew me, but I didn’t know them before tonight. I love meeting folks who are familiar with my writing or music. I met a musician I had corresponded with several years ago, and he introduced me to this really nice lady from New Orleans, Trisha Foster. She is in the music business, and we traded business cards. A few minutes later, a lovely young girl
As we left the restaurant to stroll down the
hill to the Orange Peel, I saw a familiar face walking up the sidewalk and calling out, “Hey Buffalo!” It was Paul Thorn, who was looking for some friends he was supposed to meet for dinner. He said that they had just arrived and were running behind. We spoke for a minute and he said we would chat backstage later. He
named Alex came over to tell us that Paul Thorn and the band had invited us backstage. She told me that she had someone who would guard our table, a valuable commodity since there were only a handful of tables and a few bar stools. Everyone else had to stand all night. Alex lead us to the backstage area, past the velvet rope, where we found Paul kicked back on the sofa, Dr. Love on another and Ralph was standing, talking to Dr. Love. We had a seat and I was talking to Paul and the
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