Hey hey In Rockers and welcome to this month's installment of the Lobby, my lobby, Robby's Lobby, coming to you in the pages of the mighty In Rock for what will soon be nearly 2 decades. We've seen much together, and I look forward to sharing these journeys with you as a trusted companion as I continue my travels and this career as a lifelong goo goo doll. This edition finds me in Portland, Oregon as we're here for a private show after gathering the goo goo dolls camp in Los Angeles to go over the details for our North American Big Night Out tour this summer with OAR and Fitz and the Tantrums. But before we begin preparing for the summer set lists we return to Buffalo to help celebrate the opening of a new art gallery with an acoustic show in the new gallery space. After a few days of rest at home, well I'm not sure how much resting will be done, but we then head off for shows at The Rock and Blues festival in Brazil and a 2 week tour of the UK and Ireland to follow the Sao Paulo show. So it's a ton of flying and many more countries coming up for us this month, let's get to it !
As the weather warms and the Spring is in full swing The 2023 Buffalo Cherry Blossom Festival that I am involved with was last month at the Buffalo History Museum, my Music is Art organization booked all of the entertainment t for the day, classic Japanese arts such as dance, shamisen and taiko were featured as well as acoustic acts and even some hip hop and spoken word artists. The 2 days of music featured a performance by local up and coming band Sunday Reign and our Buffalo Shibuki Taiko Drum group. W3 had one day of perfect weather and a day of rain, but the celebration of the blossoms went on and we had another successful year of the Buffalo Cherry Blossom Festival! We're so lucky to have this beautiful garden in our city, in cooperation with the city of Kanazawa since 1972 and with the support of the Consulate of Japan we are proud to help continue the legacy of these gardens and the shared cultural experiences they provide our community.
Last week was my wife Miyoko's birthday and to celebrate we took a trip to Cleveland Ohio to see Ohtani and The LA Angels play the Cleveland Guardians in Cleveland which is about 3 hours drive from Buffalo. My daughter Hana and Miyoko proudly wore their Ohtani jerseys to the game as did thousands of other Japanese people who made the trip to see Ohtani play! He didn’t pitch the game we went to, but since he is such an amazing player we were able to see him play as a designated hitter and although they didn’t win the game we truly enjoyed the day, hot dogs, singing, doing the wave and seeing the support of the US Japanese community for their MLB superstar who is making such an impact on the game of baseball.
Alright, as I mentioned next for month's column we'll be smack dab in the middle of our UK tour, can’t wait to fill you in on the Brazil trip as well! All sorts of stuff going on for the summer including a single GGDS just released with the band OAR, a cover of Tom Pettys “Won't Back Down” which we'll be performing with them throughout their leg of The Big Night Out tour of North America, it's out now! That's it for this month, I look forward to touching base next month here in the pages of the mighty In Rock!
Peace
Robby