Monday, August 31, 2009

Show Day in Udine, Italy

More random shots from today in Italy…

Toilet in the crew room. Yuck!And no, I don't mean urinal. That's the pooper! What we refer to as a "Turkish Toilet."

The crowd of 41,000+ filling up the bowl.

Riggers Chuck and Jim on stage.

My usual 9pm photo, just before the band hit the stage.

Three shots during "Yellow."



Fireworks at the end of the show.



Headed out to the bus around 3am, crawled into my happy place about 4:30…

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Production Day in Udine, Italy

After loading in and setting up my office, I worked for a couple of hours, then bailed with some other folks to go back to the hotel. We're staying at the lovely Hotel Friuli, a few blocks from the center of Udine. We were all kind of puzzled as we were pulling up, because it looked more like a gas station with a hotel than a hotel with a gas station in front of it.

This is Ed Jarman (our video engineer) hanging out of his top floor window. He shouted down that this was one of the finest petrol stations he's ever stayed in.

Upstairs for a shower, and then a few of us met in the lobby to head out for dinner - Eric & Mick (merch guys), Jackie (security) and me. We walked around the city center for about an hour checking out some local sites.




Finally decided on a restaurant that we all thought looked pretty good. This was my dinner, a mushroom pizza:

Dessert was Tiramisu and a shot of Limoncello. This was by far the very best Tiramisu I've ever had.

Back to the hotel after dinner, where I joined a few other folks in the lobby bar for a few rounds…

Friday, August 28, 2009

Production Day in Munich, Germany

Had an old friend waiting for me in my hotel room in Munich when I got there…

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Show Day in Dusseldorf, Germany

Not too much to report, but I got some cool shots here…

The stage, shot from Front Of House yesterday morning:

Same shot, tonight during the show:

The house, shot from the stage yesterday morning:

Same shot, tonight just before the band went on:That's 42,000 kids out there!!!

Our truck corral out back:

The confetti cannons cranking up during the band's encore, shot from the back of the stage:

My favorite part of the confetti gag is the third blast – it's a different type of confetti and looks great under blacklight:

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Show Day in Hannover, Germany

Here are a few of our fine folks. L-R, Ernie Wagner (set carpenter), Julie Matway (Live Nation tour rep), and Kurt Wagner (stage manager):

Good crowd tonight, about 35,000 or so.

Coming in…

From a higher vantage point:

A sea of humanity:

From the other end:

Early in the set:

During "Yellow"

Just as the confetti cannons start blasting:

As is usual of late, made it to my bunk about 3:30am...

Monday, August 24, 2009

I love this comic. Yeah, yeah, I posted it some time ago, but I just came across it again while looking for some photos. It cracks me up…

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Travel Day to Hannover, Germany

Another long bus ride, this one included a ferry from Denmark to Germany. This ferry was pretty interesting. In addition to all the cars, trucks and buses, there was a TRAIN in the belly of the vessel. There were rails on the bottom level that lined up with rails on the dock and dang if the train didn't come right onto the ship and park up close to our bus.

This is Peanut, one of our riggers, standing topside on the ferry. Love his shirt…
You may have to click and enlarge the photo to see the image.

Cool bridge we crossed during the drive today. Sorry about the bugs on the windshield…



Saturday, August 22, 2009

Show Day in Stockholm, Sweden

More random gig photos, taken today here in Stockholm. Our show is at the Olympic Stadium, which was built for the 1912 Olympics.

My favorite shot is this one, which I took from up on top of the stadium, opposite end from the stage. If you look at the photo above, I was standing up above the welcome slogan you see there.












CM's guitars:
CM's tech Hoppy, working:
JB's two racks o' geetars:

Set Carpenter Minh Nguyen, who (like me) lives in Raleigh, NC:
Rigger Chuck Anderson:
(As always, click on any photo to enlarge it.)