Posts by Brian O.
The Wag is back in the papers again!
The Wag’s 2017 California Tour – Day 9 by Brian Ostering
Day 9: We went to the beach in the early afternoon and then headed to our final gig of the tour at Winston’s Beach Club. Check out what happened at our final gig in Alicia’s words:
“Now THIS is cool: a lady came into our gig tonight, & was singing along with everything, originals included. That’s cool enough on its own – but what she told us afterwards was even better. A while back she had been working on the computer & went to YouTube to listen to bands, choosing them at random. She found one of our videos & really dug us, so listened to more of us, then looked us up (I guess on our website). She was disappointed to find out that we were from NJ, assuming she’d never get to see us. She happened to be walking by the cool open window that this venue has, *recognized* us, & came in, & stayed for the whole gig!! HOW COOL!!! And then she bought some CDs! 🎶😃💖”
We had such a great show! The crowd was great, the sound system was excellent and the vibe was awesome. This was the perfect way to end our California tour! Hope you enjoyed my little blogs. 🙂
End of day 9. Another successful Wag tour!
The Wag’s 2017 California Tour – Day 8 by Brian Ostering
Day 8: Don and I ran to the music store to pick up some guitar picks and strings. It was actually very nice to go to a normal store. When you are away from home for a while, you start to miss things like that.
The gig tonight was in Julian, CA. It’s about an hour away from San Diego but the ride to get there is beautiful. We decided to stop and take some pictures along the way.
The gig at Wynola Pizza and Bistro was amazing! The crowd was so receptive to our music. We had people dancing and singing along with us! I should also mention that the food is fantastic and that they had vegan pizza for all of the vegans in the band!
End of day 8.
The Wag’s 2017 California Tour – Day 6 and 7 by Brian Ostering
Day 6: Today we had a day off from gigs and went to check out the animal conservation programs at the San Diego Safari Park. They have helped repopulate a bunch of animals into the wild that have almost become extinct.
We spent most of our day at the Safari Park and then relaxed for the rest of the day.
End of day 6.
Day 7: On this day, we decided to visit Old Town again so that I could open up my own pub!
After my failed venture as a pub owner, we ate lunch at a great Mexican place in Old Town.
After spending the afternoon in Old Town, we had an awesome gig at the City Pub in San Diego! The atmosphere was great and so was the crowd!
End of day 7.
The Wag’s 2017 California Tour – Day 4 and 5 by Brian Ostering
Day 4: The Wag goes to Hollywood!
On our way to LA, we passed by a parkway with a pretty cool name!
Here are some shots of us with the Hollywood sign in the back. We tried to drive closer, but the roads became very narrow. Our rented Wag mobile was not having any of that! We decided to be safe and just stop here.
We wouldn’t have any band pictures on this tour if it hadn’t been for our dear friend Erin, who is pictured with us below:
While in town, we checked out the famous Amoeba record store. We were so pleased to see that they are selling The Wag records!
Then it was off to see and do some fun things in the land of the stars! We kind of got captured by Hollywood!
Look at Don doing his Shatner impression by William Shatner’s name!
If I don’t have Alicia looking over my shoulder then I have Marylin Monroe doing it!
After our Hollywood frolicking, we arrived at our first LA gig at The Mint!
I can’t begin to tell you how great this show was! We were treated so well by the staff and the sound guy was awesome! As soon as we started playing, the crowd got into our music. The smiles and claps filled the club! It was such a boost! We had people dancing and cheering for our original music. It was spectacular! After our set, we sold CDs, shook hands and were told that we could come back any time. It was such a great show and we were all beaming with happiness!
It was so cool to see some of our fans from the area come out and support us! Thank you Joe (pictured above), Jeremy and Chrisi for joining us!
End of day 4!
Day 5: After breakfast, we headed out to some more cool places. Here we are in front of the Capitol Records building.
Hollywood liked us so much that they gave us our own star! 🙂
We drove for awhile on Mullholland Road and stopped to take some pictures:
Then we headed to see the Santa Monica pier!
On our way to the Coffee Gallery Backstage gig, Arielle asked me if we had a set list. I told her that it will depend on the club. I said if their were skulls hanging in the windows that we might need to adjust our set list a bit. As soon as we arrived, we saw this on one of the tables:
Despite the skull, we played our normal Wag set and the crowd really got into it!
It was so nice to hang out and chat with the audience after the show in the merchandise area. Everybody was so nice! We sold a bunch of CDs and then made our way back to San Diego. Along the way, we saw this truck carting a gigantic cube on the highway. It was surrounded by cop cars. I kept thinking that it was an alien spacecraft that was being transferred to a secret facility. What can I say? I was exhausted. Lol.
End of day 5!
The Wag’s California Tour – Days 2 and 3 by Brian Ostering
Day 2: Alicia and I started our day by going to the Church of The Immaculate Conception in Old Town. It was a fantastic Mass and we got to bring up the gifts. The priest asked us who we were and where we were visiting from. We told him and mentioned that we were going to be celebrating our 19 year wedding anniversary next month. He told the congregation and everyone clapped! It was funny to have that happen at a church.
After Mass, we picked up the remaining Waggers and went back to spend the afternoon in Old Town. Here are some fun pictures from our time in Old Town:
After getting out of the Old Town jail, we decided to head to Coronado Island! We went for a walk along the beach and the weather was beautiful!
Then after our walk, we had a great dinner at a place called Kindred. I got the tofu kabobs! When you’re on tour with The Wag, you eat well!
The end of day 2!
Day 3: This was another day of leisure! We went to La Jolla and got to hang out with some seals and sea lions! Check out some of our pictures:
After lunch, we checked out the dog beach. It seemed fitting for The Wag to do that. 🙂
The end of day 3!
The Wag’s 2017 California Tour – Day 1 by Brian Ostering
Day 1: After some flight delays, we arrived safely in San Diego! The pilot heard that we were a world famous band and personally offered us a snack. Only the best for The Wag!
After our flight, we picked up the new Wag mobile! It’s like a tank!
Got some cool rental guitars and settled into our SD hotel!
Although our tasty snack was very filling, we decided to visit The Loving Hut for a real meal!
After that, we rocked out for the night at the Go Lounge!
Day one was a success! We got to reunite with our bongo chick, Arielle, and had an awesome show! California welcomed The Wag back with open arms!
2015 London Tour – by Brian
I have always dreamed of having a band and going on tour. I’ve tried to put things together in the past, but it never really worked out. Sometime last year, we made a fan in England who really liked our music. It is amazing what the internet can do for you! Anyway, she really liked what she heard and told us that she was going to save up money to come see us in America one day. It made me start thinking about the whole “tour dream” that I have always had. Since the retirement of our original guitarist and the sudden passing of our original drummer, our band lineup has changed. I started to run the idea of doing a tour by my new fellow bandmates and they were very interested in doing it. This was it! This is the first opportunity that I have ever had to tour with our band. So after making a short list of places to tour, we came up with London as our destination. Little did our new fan from England know – we were bringing the band to her! The optimism and enthusiasm of my bandmates truly warmed my heart. This was destined to be the trip of a lifetime! And it was.
On day one of our trip, we all found ourselves at Don’s house as he was in the process of last-minute packing. He had everything all over the place – I should have taken a picture. After we got that sorted, our good buddy Jake Lee accompanied us to the airport. He would then be the guy to pick us up from the airport when our tour was finished. Thanks, Jake! The Virgin Atlantic plane was the coolest thing ever. The interior looked like a fancy music club! The purple lights and large headroom was something that I’ve never seen before on a plane. Even though it was pretty late, it was difficult to fall asleep because of the excitement of our trip and of course, it is always hard to sleep on planes. We landed in Heathrow and began our big trip in London by being picked up by a car service that would bring us to our hotel. I was the last one to get into the car, so the band saved the front seat for me because of my height. Of course, I went to get in the driver’s seat (according to the US cars) and the driver asked me if I would be driving today. Face palm.
Our hotel wasn’t the best but we all got to stay together in one room. It was just like how I imagined touring would be for a band on a budget! The best part was that we all got along so well. Once we figured out who took longest to get ready, we came up with a schedule that worked out great. We even had a phone/camera charging schedule.
I tried to document our trip each time we were in a place that had wifi. It was fun making the little posts on Facebook and getting responses from back home and seeing posts from people that were cheering us on.
Our first day was awesome! We got to eat at a cool little place called VX and played our first gig in London at Dirty Dicks (the oldest operating pub in London). Our friends from England came to see us, along with a bunch of new friends including Dawn (who became our fan online and helped to spark this entire tour). We were even joined on stage by Norda Mullen! (She is the flautist for The Moody Blues). Another new friend, Ashleigh, drove us back to the hotel after the gig.
After a successful and exciting first gig, we spent the next day at Stonehenge! This site is a personal favorite of mine. It was another fantastic day. Don and Arielle kept singing the Spinal Tap song. It was quite funny!
Our 3rd day consisted of watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, eating at Mildred’s (the top vegan place in London) courtesy of our dear friend Pastor Matt and then performing at Karamel Restaurant in the evening. The staff at Karamel were so nice to us and they had awesome vegan food for us too! The place had such a great vibe. Yet another fun gig to play!
We spent the next day at one of King Henry VIII’s many castles: Hampton Court Palace! A perfect day for sightseeing and then dinner with our friends at 222 (the second best vegan restaurant in London).
Day 5 started out with a visit to Abbey Road! Yes, we took the Beatle picture and crossed at the crosswalk. Later on, we went on a ride in The London Eye! We topped off the night with our 3rd gig of the tour at a place called Rise 46. It was another cool venue with a great vibe. We were very fortunate to meet up with fans and friends at all of our shows and Rise 46 was no exception. At this club, a friend of ours from New Zealand (Marian) came to see us!
On day six of our tour, we visited the Tower of London. We made a new band rule that day. Band rule number 1: Don’t lose Donnie. That became an important rule because we lost him in the Tower for about half an hour. After finding Don and eating lunch, we made our way to our fourth and final show of our tour to a place called The Cool Cats Cafe. This place was a wonderful venue that had tasty food and a most generous staff. Somehow, I lit my menu on fire while I was deciding what to order. I guess that was the rock and roll mayhem portion of our tour. Although we almost didn’t make it back to the hotel because we missed the last train, our good fortune followed us and one more unexpected train came to take us to our hotel.
The next day, we headed home from our London adventure! Our trip consisted of great gigs, great sights to see, great food and great friends. Who could ask for anything more?
Next stop: San Diego!
The Wag’s Fourth London Promo Video!
Take a look at the video promo for our gig at Karamel Restaurant in London! We will be performing there on 5/26/15 at 9 pm. See you at the show!
The Wag @ The Starland Ballroom!
Official Wag Announcement
Before our drummer, Brian Mowery, passed away, we began to record a new album. To honor him and the work that he started with us, we have decided to finish this record. We were very fortunate to have recorded Brian’s drum tracks on a few of the new songs. We have assembled a collection of songs for this album that meant something to Brian. He either played on them, wrote the drum parts, co-wrote the songs or wrote the song entirely. This is a very important album to us as well as an emotional one to make. Each time we go into our home studio and see Brian’s drums or add to the tracks that he recorded, we can’t help but to get emotional. But it also gives us the strength that we need to continue because it reminds us that Brian put himself into our music and into these recordings. Our new CD will be completed by and released on Brian’s birthday, this September 28th. It feels like this would be the perfect birthday gift for Brian. We have decided to have our CD release party at the venue that has been our musical home over the years – Espresso Joe’s. We hope that you will join us and help us celebrate the life of our friend, brother & drummer, and the music that he helped create for 14 years.
