Walking back into Copper & Oak on Valentine’s Day felt a little like coming back to a favorite classroom, except this time we brought the saxophone teacher with us. Our December duo show there was one of our favorites of 2025, so we’d been itching to hear what the room would sound like with Paul Weddle in the mix.

Starting the night with a group hug

Before we even unloaded a guitar or keyboard, there was this small moment that kind of set the tone for the night. Paul and his wife walked in, we all met near the bar, and without really planning it, everyone just went in for a big group hug. Not exactly rock-and-roll, but pretty on-brand for a Valentine’s gig.

Load-in at Copper & Oak is easy, and honestly, we don’t really think of it as work. While we were setting up, Joe and Michelle checked in on us, people filtered in for date night and meetups with friends, and we started talking through the plan: lean hard into love songs, give the sax plenty of room, and still sneak in some of the trio tunes we’ve been working on.

Love songs, sax features, and a quiet “My Funny Valentine”

We built the first part of the night around songs that made sense for Valentine’s Day without turning the whole thing into a Hallmark card. Paul absolutely owned the big sax moments like “Baker Street,” and it was fun to hear that solo bounce around the room with people nodding along at the bar.

We pulled out “Your Song” and “Time After Time,” which always seem to land well on nights like this. We also tried out a jazz arrangement of “My Funny Valentine.” We did it as an instrumental and it wasn’t bad for our first “go” with it. We had discussed that song earlier in the week, noting how the lyrics were about seeing someone clearly, not perfectly, and that felt pretty fitting for a room full of real-life couples and longtime friends.

Three-part harmonies and one missing Billy Joel tune

Between the love songs, we snuck in some of the trio arrangements we’ve been building with Paul. We’ve been putting in extra rehearsal time on three-part harmonies, and this was the first Copper & Oak crowd to hear them. “Leader of the Band,” “Draggin’ the Line,” and “Danny’s Song” all made the list, and “Danny’s Song” in particular felt good — that moment when you hit a blend and kind of look at each other like, “Okay, that actually worked.”

The plan was to finally play “Just the Way You Are.” Paul has that sax solo dialed in, and we’ve been meaning to add it to more sets. But mid-show, Greg’s voice decided it had other ideas.

When the voice taps out mid-show

I (Greg) hit a point where my voice just… left. No warning, no graceful fade, just gone. This happens maybe one out of every eight or ten shows when I’m not singing as smart as I should. I’ll be honest: it’s frustrating, especially when you’ve been looking forward to a specific song. We had “Just the Way You Are” sitting there on the setlist, ready to go, and we had to skip it.

I grabbed some Advil, drank a bunch of water, and after about half an hour I felt a little better, but vocally I pretty much bowed out for the rest of the night. The good thing about playing in a trio is you’re not alone up there. Tom adjusted the set on the fly, Paul stretched out a bit more on sax, and we leaned into tunes that didn’t need me to push too hard.

The crowd stayed with us the whole way. People still stopped on their way out to offer kind words and talk about songs they grew up with. One person mentioned how much they loved hearing “My Funny Valentine” done that way; another asked when we’d be back so they could bring friends next time. Those little conversations mean a lot, especially on a night when things didn’t go perfectly onstage.

 

Closing time, bean burritos, and what’s next

After we packed up and said our goodbyes to Joe, Michelle, and a few lingering regulars, we did what we usually do after a Lincoln, IL show: pointed the car toward home and found a Taco Bell. Bean burritos in hand, we replayed the night — the hug at the start, “Danny’s Song,” the harmonies that clicked, and how good it felt to be back at Copper & Oak for another live acoustic performance, this time with sax in the mix.

We’ll be teaming up with Paul again at Crescent City Tap in a few weeks, so if you’re looking for live music in Galva or nearby, that’s another chance to catch this trio setup.

And if you’ve got a bar, patio, private party, or anything else that could use some piano, guitar, harmonies, and the occasional saxophone feature, you can reach us here to talk details: https://www.bellandfieldmusic.com/book-acoustic-duo/.