The musical portion of our first Bell & Field appearance at Kewanee Hog Days involved guitar, piano, sax, two speaker towers and no feedback problems. The post-show portion involved three grown musicians packed into a carnival rocket ship while Tom stared intensely at a tuft of hair on the back of Greg’s head.
One of those situations required considerably more nerve than the other.
A Breeze After the Scorcher
Sunday arrived with nearly ideal weather, especially after the incredible heat the day before. A breeze moved through the Chop Tent, the temperature stayed comfortable, and our little corner had just enough room for the three of us and our gear.
When we arrived, our friend Chris Stevenson was playing. Greg had not seen him in a long time, going back to his days working at Highlands in Bradford, so we sat down and enjoyed Chris’s guitar work before beginning our setup.
We used two speaker towers in a slightly unusual arrangement. One pointed away from the tent toward the larger carnival area, while the other stayed inside. Neither tower sat behind us, which meant we avoided the feedback problems that can turn a pleasant festival afternoon into three musicians quietly negotiating with an angry electronic goose.
Tom’s family joined us, and Greg’s mother made the trip down from Lake Barrington, also joined by Greg’s family and dog, Leo. Nearby, hamburgers and pork chops were being made, supplying both excellent food and a very appropriate soundtrack-adjacent aroma for Hog Days.
With guitar, piano and sax tucked into the corner, we worked our way through the set, including Be-Bop-A-Lula and Sweet Home Chicago. It was Bell & Field’s first time performing at Hog Days, and having Paul there let us approach the afternoon as a trio.
Twelve Tickets, Sold in Multiples of Fifteen
After the show, Greg proposed a carnival ride. Paul was in. Greg was in. Tom was very much not a carnival-ride person, but peer pressure remains a surprisingly effective management tool within this group.
The ride required twelve tickets for the three of us. Greg could only buy fifteen, leaving us with three bonus tickets and no intention of going on anything else. An attempt to give those extras to the group ahead of us did not go especially smoothly: they left the line, then eventually returned at the end. Clearly something had offended them, or they just enjoyed the unnecessary drama.
At least the mathematics had been sound.
The ride was the Hurricane, a rocket-shaped contraption that travels in a circle while also moving up and down. As we took our seats, we were all smiles, waves and thumbs-up for Tom’s family watching from the side. This was the cheerful part, before the tremendous G-force began rearranging everyone’s priorities and faces.
Greg immediately slid against the side of the rocket and received a rapid reminder that it had been a long time since his last ride of this sort. He felt a little sick but made it through fine. Paul, a Navy veteran, handled the whole thing without trouble.
Tom had remembered the standard nausea-avoidance strategy: choose one fixed object and stare at it. The available fixed object was the back of Greg’s head. More specifically, one tuft of hair on the back of Greg’s head.
So while the Hurricane spun, climbed and dropped, Tom ignored the carnival, the horizon and every other visual option. Greg’s hair became his entire navigational system. The strategy mostly worked, which is about the highest rating any carnival-ride strategy should reasonably receive.
The Emergency Corndog Protocol
Once we were back on solid ground, Tom required a Snazzy’s lemon shake-up and a corndog to get going again. This appears to be the proper recovery meal after using another musician’s haircut as a meditative focal point.
The photos from the ride captured the moment in all its dignity. We had gone to Hog Days to play music with Paul, spend time with family and friends, eat pork chops and make our first appearance at the festival. We left with all of that, plus a useful lesson: when Greg suggests a ride after a show, Tom should either resist peer pressure or make sure Greg has a dependable hairstyle.
If you’re considering some live music for your own gathering—carnival ride strictly optional—you can take a look at booking Bell & Field here.
Tom and Paul kept playing while I recovered. They used the unexpected duo time to try songs we don’t normally play as a trio, including Can’t Help Falling in Love, All I Have to Do Is Dream and Elvis Presley Blues. The songs went over well, giving the afternoon a musical detour rather than simply leaving a piano-shaped hole in the set.
The rain arrived about 45 minutes before our 1 pm start at Edison’s Gastropub, which is excellent timing if you are a cloud and less useful if you are carrying instruments.
The intermittent rain continued through much of the set. By the final notes of Tiny Dancer, the weather had supplied nearly every variation available between damp and slightly less damp.
Then Greg and Payton performed Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. A few nerves showed through, but the performance was sublime. Payton did great on both songs, and she is looking forward to learning more material with us and making more appearances.
Before we left for this private party, we ran through A Horse with No Name one more time.
Once the sun was out of the way, the lighting setup got to do its part. Greg does not simply run one sound-synced program and hope for the best. He has different scenes arranged for different kinds of music, so he rotated the lights throughout the night.
Sunday afternoon shows are starting to grow on us. There’s something about loading out while there’s still daylight that feels like we’re getting away with something.
When we arrived, Lisa welcomed us, recorded a quick pre-show welcome video (Tom handled the talking; Greg did his usual “stand there and try not to look awkward” routine), and showed us where to pull the cars around back so we could unload right next to the performance area. We will never stop appreciating an easy load-in.
We’d played the night before, and Greg’s voice had already taken a beating. He’d slept badly, got up around 7:00 a.m., and by the first song at Tres Rojas, it was clear his voice was mostly air.
Tom also took a few solo turns, including “Heart of Gold” and an original called “Our Time,” which Greg hadn’t heard him play in ages. There’s a different kind of focus in the air when we play an original. Covers tend to trigger shared memories; originals ask everyone to lean in and listen to a story they’re hearing for the first time.
We’d heard about Tiny Acres out near Monmouth, but driving down that long country road for the first time felt a little like we’d taken a wrong turn into someone’s private farm lane. Then the trees opened up, the pond came into view, and suddenly there was this whole little event world laid out in front of us.
The place itself is impressive. There’s the 1850s ceremony barn up on the hill, looking over the pond, with rows of chairs set up like it’s permanently five minutes before a wedding. There’s an overnight cabin, outdoor spaces with grills and picnic tables, and the main event building where we played. You can tell somebody actually thought about how people move through this place.
Once we got set up and sound‑checked, we realized this room was built with sound in mind. No weird slapback echo, no dead zone at the far end. People could be standing at the bar and still hear the music clearly, but we never felt like we were blasting anyone out of their chairs. It’s rare that a long, rectangular room feels that balanced, and this one did.
Somewhere later in the night, someone tossed out a request for “Gin and Juice.” Not exactly in the Bell & Field standard catalog. I gave it a shot anyway—one verse, acoustic, very tongue‑in‑cheek—then stopped, laughed, and admitted that was probably as far as I could responsibly take it. That one verse got a bigger reaction than some full songs, and it reminded me how sometimes you don’t have to nail a request to make it fun; you just have to meet people halfway.
We packed up through that magic load‑in door, said our goodbyes, and headed back down the long road to Monmouth. On the way out of town, we hit Taco Bell, debriefed the night, and started game‑planning our show at Tres Rojas Winery the next day. It’s hard not to feel lucky when your “work meeting” is about playing songs you love and eating bean burritos and tacos.
Late November in Iowa usually means coats in the car, short days, and people deciding whether they’re ready for winter yet. A Friday night at a winery and distillery sounds like a pretty solid way to delay that decision for a few hours.
Going into this one at Coal Creek Brewing in Princeton, we honestly weren’t sure what we were walking into. A Tuesday, 5–7 PM, a private group Jim was hosting, and a room we’d never played before. We didn’t know where we’d set up, how loud we should be, or if people would be listening closely or just chatting over us.
One of those musicians was Payton Schott, who owns West Main Coffee & Books in Toulon. I used to play music with her a few years back. Our side project never totally found its lane, but it ended on good terms, and I’ve always thought the world of her as a person and as a musician. She’s also the one who helped connect us with Jim for this Coal Creek date, so this gig was kind of the Toulon–Galva–Princeton triangle closing a loop.
Between sets and after we wrapped, we worked through that beer flight Tom had ordered, comparing notes like we actually knew what we were talking about. Tom eventually settled on a full 16 oz of a blueberry/blackberry wheat draft called “Plot Twist,” which pretty much nailed the whole night in one phrase. Neither of us expected a Tuesday at Coal Creek to turn into one of our favorite recent gigs, but there we were.
