Good Vibrations

DAY 6, continued: (Danny) We woke up this morning and left our hotel in Suva to travel across the main Fijian island, Viti Levu, to play at a local restaurant in Nadi called Bounty. The owner, Robert, fed us the most amazing meals and desserts! I had mango cheesecake with snowballs and banana ice-cream covered with fresh coconut flakes.After a lunch of great curries, we set up our equipment in the other room for a jam session. Because we only had a little bit of time for the session before we had to leave and set up for the next one, I played just brushes on a music stand. There was a room full of local musicians and some free food, so you know the next part of the story, LOL!We played a few tunes and then invited people up to play. They were shy at first and no one really came forward so we went into the crowd and coaxed them up. Well, a bass player named Leo came up and played some piano and a drummer came up and played some brushes and it ended up being a great jam session of mostly classic rock tunes. It seems there are lots of bass players in this area but there is only one upright bass on the whole island. Brian is a little bit of a star!

At the end of the session, all the local musicians sang us the Fijian Farewell song that the choir had sung for us the day before, except that it had more of a folk feel. They waved goodbye and we teared up again. We had to leave and check in at our new hotel where we were welcomed by a guy playing a log drum. He played a welcome Lali drum beat. He heard I was a drummer, so he invited me to play it and I did okay. But I think he played with much more conviction. We checked in and I finally got some wireless for the first time all day. I was able to make my first Skype call of the whole trip. It made my day even more incredible!We set up and played for about an hour in the hotel where some of the musicians from the afternoon session were listening and joined us. We got to play some Cat Stevens, Johnny Cash and even some Louis Armstrong tunes. We are a band of brothers and are having so much fun on the road together again. We love performing and traveling together. This sharing of music, friendship and good vibrations is so inspiring and brings us so much joy. This is why we came on this tour and have made so many friends here in Fiji. We’re all very sad to leave Fiji tomorrow, yet very excited to go to Papua New Guinea.

(En route from Fiji to Papua New Guinea) We just took off from Fiji's main airport in Nadi and are flying over a tranquil turquoise sea, dotted with little islands which can only be described as castaways. We left our hotel at 5:30 AM to ensure all our gear would get on board. We were only partially lucky because we made the weight but paid through the nose.

After our show last night, we ate a pan Asian meal at the hotel. The hour was filled with lots of laughter, stories and then some final travel prep for the morning. Before we ate, I finally had a chance to walk around this beautiful ocean resort and take some pictures. I definitely want to come back here again and enjoy the island and these resorts. The hotel was amazing, the rooms were awesome and we were treated like kings. Before we went off to sleep, the staff of young waitresses had to have our cd so I went back to my room to grab some and when I returned, I was greeted by a sea of hands and high-pitched squeals.We signed the cds and posed for pictures and received so many thankful hugs.We’ve made even more friends. They told us, “West is best” and the prettiest girls were on their part of the island. They were charming, funny and warm and made us promise to return to Fiji with our families.