Bobzilla's Adventures

Day Off in Greenville, SC

2011-06-06T23:04:00.000-04:00

My kind of roadie day off – lazy, lazy, lazy. Other than walking the 7 or 8 blocks to Starbucks real early this morning, I never left my room all day. I read two newspapers, a few magazines, and watched 3 or 4 movies. I even ordered room service, something I never, ever do…

Day Off in Greenville, SC

2011-06-05T23:30:00.001-04:00

I gotta say, Greenville, South Carolina, has one of the prettiest little downtown areas I've ever seen. It's all of about 8 or 9 blocks long, but it's filled with restaurants, bars, galleries, non-chain clothing and retail stores, and absolutely the most beautiful downtown park I've seen in many years, maybe ever - Falls Park. This place is so damn cool, I could live here. I think I'm gonna have to come back here on vacation…

Show Day in Cleveland

2011-06-04T11:59:00.001-04:00

Typical roadie day. Woke up at 6:20am, not much light outside due to the bus being parked underneath the Quicken Loans Arena here in Cleveland. Were it not for a 30-minute trip I took with Blaine mid-day, I wouldn't have seen sunshine or had a breath of fresh air the whole day. As I type this, it's past 1:00am and I'm getting ready to head out to my bus for the night. Again…under the building. No sunshine for me again until tomorrow morning, when I wake up during our 600-mile drive to Greenville, SC.

Back to the excursion, Blaine, our touring Live Nation rep, lives here in Cleveland. He went to his house this morning and picked up his car. Offered me the nickel tour of his neighborhood not too far away and we also swung by this really cool marketplace area to grab some lunch. One can only eat so much tour catering, ya know. He grabbed a bratwurst, and I found a Mediterranean place and got some stuffed grape leaves and a spinach & feta pie. Was waaay tastier than catering.

Not much else to report today…

Travel Day to Buffalo, NY

2011-06-02T21:39:00.001-04:00

Flew into Buffalo this afternoon, end of a 5-day tour break. Thinking I'll start the blog up again…

Strange hotel room here at the Hyatt. One little closet has the toilet and the shower (no tub). The other little closet has the sink and mirror. How high was the guy who designed these rooms?

Blaine texted me as soon as I got in my room. He and his girl Denise were across the street at the Century Grill. I jumped on the elevator to run down and meet them. I was on 12. The elevator stopped on 6 and a bunch of muso-looking dudes got on. One of 'em noticed my Coldplay jacket and asked if I was a guitar tech. I said nope, just a mean ol' tour accountant. Asked him what band they were and he told me they were Edward Sharpe And The Magnetic Zeros. Made small talk the rest of the way down. Nice kids. Said they were playing at Lafayette Square in about 25 minutes at one of those free downtown shows that are so popular here in Buffalo. Told I'd come watch.

Met up with Blaine and Denise, had a beer and then headed over. Place was a madhouse, must have been 5,000 people all on one block. Had few beers, watched the band awhile, then headed back to the Century Grill for dinner.

Made it back to my room by 9:30. Another perfect roadie night. Might actually get some sleep tonight…

Show Day in Donington, UK

2010-06-12T23:58:00.009-04:00

Band came offstage last night in Madrid right at 2am. Left the site around 3am, got into my room, slept 30 whole minutes, then got up, showered, and left for the airport.

On the ground in London at 9am, only to find out that the transportation company had completely screwed up our vehicles for the 3-hour drive up to Donington. Major bummer! Within an hour or so, 8 people were sent off in one vehicle, an hour later another few went, and then finally, just past noon (after sitting here for over 3 hours), the last 3 of us got in a car to make the journey. Since I’m not "show-critical" I was one of the last to leave. No complaints here, because our ride was a huge, pimped-out Mercedes sedan with reclining rear seats. Sweet! I even managed to get in a small nap on the way up.

Stopped at a services area along the way, and I broke down and had my first Starbucks of 2010. Didn't really want to, but with today's schedule, it couldn't hurt.

Got to the Download Festival site around 2:30pm, because our driver Eddie was hauling ass. I checked the speedometer a couple of times and he was doing 100mph. That big Benz felt like it was riding on glass, though.

Sure wish we had more time, because I had probably 40 friends here today, mostly crew folks, but a few band guys, too. Would have been nice to have some hang time with them.

Dave arrived late afternoon, and parked a short distance away. I got him a backstage parking pass so I don't have to haul my suitcase all over hell and half of England when we leave from here tonight to drive down to his place in Dorset.

Tonight's the last show of the year for Rage. Seven shows total over two weeks is just NOT enough. I really love this crew, and I think I speak for all of us when I say that this band should tour more. But it is what it is…

Tonight's show is also the biggest of the tour. 98,000 in attendance, which looks like this…

Here's a shot of my buddy, Andy Meyer, our FOH Engineer, just before our show...

Murph (Patrick Murphy), our Stage Manager…

Shirley (our Production Assistant) and Spragoo (Monitor Engineer)…

Slim (Tom's Guitar Tech) waiting for the band to come onstage…

Slim's nightly, end-of-show catch of Tom's guitar. Unfortunately, this one signifies the end of the tour...

After packing up my stuff, it was hugs all-around, then Dave and I jumped in his car for a 3-hour drive to Dorset. Amazingly enough, I stayed awake the whole time. Miraculous, considering I was running on 30 minutes of sleep last night…

Show Day in Madrid

2010-06-11T23:57:00.000-04:00

What I wanted to do was stay up really late last night, so I'd sleep late this morning, which would help with the crazy stuff we've gotta do to make it to the UK for tomorrow night's show. I was up until just past 5am, but my brain flat refused to sleep in this morning, waking me right at 9am. Sheesh!

Tried to nap during the afternoon, but that wasn't working, either, dang it! Headed out to the gig about 6pm. Sounds late but Rage wasn't scheduled to play until 12:30am. No need to be there too terribly early, ya know?

Travel Day to Madrid

2010-06-10T23:47:00.005-04:00

By the time we finally got back to the hotel at the Amsterdam airport last night, I figured out that I'd had three 30-minute naps over the course of nearly 44 hours. Talk about tired…

People have the strangest misconceptions of what being a roadie is like. They think being on the road is non-stop partying, backstage at the shows, at the hotels, and everywhere else we find ourselves in our travels. While that might sometimes be true for the bands (some bands, not all), we crew folks have work to do. Nobody's being paid to party out here. "Living the dream" for us mostly consists of a few hours of stress release on the occasional day off.

On a show day, it doesn't matter if I'm in Paris, France, or Boise, Idaho. I'm in a windowless room in a building, with little chance of even getting outside into the fresh air. But get me to that day off and I'll be out and about, enjoying bars, restaurants, and activities all over the world with my road family.

Made it to our Madrid hotel, checked in, and then headed out to the venue to load in and set up the office. The gig tomorrow is the Rock In Rio Festival (Madrid edition), and is located about 30 minutes outside of the city.

Spotted this amazing fountain on the way out of town...

After taking care of all that, back to the hotel, then off for a late-night dinner with a group of folks. We went to a tapas/paella restaurant about 2 blocks from the hotel. Food so good, make ya wanna slap yo mama, like this paella...

Looking for a good night of sleep tonight, because following the show tomorrow night will be our worst-of-tour travel experience…

Show Day in Arnhem, Holland

2010-06-09T23:51:00.000-04:00

Another brutal day…got 30 minutes of sleep last night at the Dublin hotel before I had to get up and head to the airport for this morning's flight into Amsterdam. Got another 30 minutes on the plane.

Landed in Amsterdam and straight away to our hotel, arriving around 9:30am. Rooms not ready, imagine that! Within 20-30 minutes, about half us got room keys. Everybody kinda buddied up, so all would have a place to hang out, even if they were waiting for their own rooms. I let Steven Douglas, our LD, crash out in my room while I met up for 4-5 other folks to eat breakfast downstairs. The breakfast is included with our rooms, but not for this morning, since we're checking in. It's for tomorrow, and they won't budge, despite our promises not to eat it tomorrow morning. Can you say 25 Euros for breakfast? Can you say $31.00 USD? It was good, but it wasn't THAT good…

Split for the gig about 12:30pm, it being almost two hours away in Arnhem. Jane's Addiction is opening tonight, a band I can't fucking stand to listen to, but my old buddy Brad Divens is doing FOH for them and hanging out with Brad is always fun.

Got back super late to the hotel following the gig, but we can sleep in a bit tonight before flying to Madrid early tomorrow afternoon.

Show Day in Dublin

2010-06-08T23:38:00.000-04:00

Show today at the O2 Arena in Dublin. Blah, blah, blah…

Another crazy night tonight with little sleep. Left the venue quite late, hope to get an hour of sleep before leaving for the airport…

Day Off in Dublin

2010-06-07T23:38:00.006-04:00

Made it to our Dublin hotel around 4pm after an uneventful flight from the London City Airport, an airport I'd never flown into or out of before. Not sure I'd ever even heard of it. Most flights are into/out of Heathrow or Gatwick or sometimes even Stansted (another airport I've never flown to/from).

After a quick lobby chat, several of us agreed to meet in the lobby bar at 5pm for a beer, following by a drinking/dining excursion. My singular goal today was to have a few pints of Guinness at Temple Bar (the pub) in Temple Bar (the neighborhood). Temple Bar is my favorite pub here in Dublin, and Dublin is one of the few places I'll drink Guinness. It's made here, and it tastes so much better when it's fresh from the brewery instead of shipped to the US.

I was in the bar promptly at 5 (imagine that!), and Spragoo joined me a few minutes later. Took until almost 6 before all had assembled. Off we went, first stopping at Hogan's for several rounds. After about my 4th Guinness, I had to give up and switch to Buds, the Guinness being a bit heavy. What's funny is now that Anheuser-Busch is owned by a European company, you can find Bud on tap at almost every pub. Was hard as hell to find before, and even if you did find it, it was only in bottles.

Off again, this time to the Temple Bar…

Temple Bar is one of the larger pubs around, and has a cool courtyard in the center of it, with an elevated roof covering that allows plenty of fresh air IN, and cigarette smoke OUT. That's where we proceeded to camp out for the next 90 minutes or so.

Da Gang…L to R: Spragoo, Molly, Murph, Andy, Robert, Bob

Off to dinner next, at a nearby "steakhouse" I can't remember the name of. Dinner was courtesy of Sound Image, the company Spragoo works for - he's the Director of Touring there. Lots of eating, drinking and being merry before we stuffed ourselves into a taxi for the short ride back to the hotel…

Show Day in London, UK

2010-06-06T23:08:00.009-04:00

Rage is playing a free show in London today, at Finsbury Park. For the details on exactly WHY we're doing that, go HERE.

Jimmy Page came out, and watched from stage left, over by the monitor console…

Tom Morello with 40,000 of his London friends…

Tom and Zack…

Behind the backdrop, just before the encore…

End of the show…

About a half-dozen fellow roadies from the Bon Jovi tour came to hang out and see the show, as did my buddy Dave Clayton, whose house I'll be staying at during my 8-day UK vacation upcoming at the end of this tour.

Dave split just before the end of the show, so as to beat the crowds heading to the train station, but the Bon Jovi crowd hung out and had a few beers with us.

The Bon Jovi crew folks…From L to R: dude, Sooner, dude, Monkey, dude, Abby.

Among the Bon Jovi folks was my dear friend Abby Franklin. I've known the Abbster for 10 years now. We've toured together several times in that period. She cracks me up, and is always, always in a good mood.

Here's a shot from 2007 during another tour, when we went on a whale-watching expedition in Iceland…

Things wound down pretty late, and off we all went to get a good night's rest. Tomorrow, Dublin!

Travel Day to London

2010-06-05T23:54:00.001-04:00

Ugh! This tour sucks! Got all of 40 minutes sleep before I had to get up to go to the airport this morning for our flight to London. Gonna be a long, long, day…

The Koln airport was off the hook! It wasn't an airport with shops, it was a mall with planes. Every store and shop in the place was open when we got there at 6:15am. Never in my life have I seen a full-service grocery store in an airport. WTF? "Honey, on your way back from Berlin, could you pick up a liter of milk?" lol… Seriously, who shops for groceries at the airport???

AND…they had a sex toy shop there, too. Dildo, anyone?

German folks have no shame in their game when it comes to sex. Plenty of sex shops, prostitution and whatnot all over the country. They are probably more sex-obsessed than any other country I've toured in. You can even get Travel Pussy in the men's room at the airport, whatever the hell that is, lol…

On the ground in London, and off to the hotel for a bit, then over to the venue to load in for tomorrow's show, which is a free show to the public. More details on that in tomorrow's post.

Set up offices, dressing rooms, etc., then back to the hotel. Met up with Molly in the lobby, then we met up with some folks in one of the hotel bars. We walked in at like 10:02 and they wouldn't serve us food, even though they'd just taken orders from the other 4 people at our table 5 minutes ago. I slapped back a beer and left to go across the street to Marks & Spencer to get a sandwich and a packet of crisps, which I brought back to the bar and proceeded to share with Molly while the others ate their dinners. Beers, beers, and more beers later, up to my room to get a good night of sleep. That 40 minutes from last night was brutal…

Show Day in Nuerburg, Germany

2010-06-04T23:59:00.000-04:00

Not a bad night's sleep, considering it's our one and only night on an overnight bus ride during this tour. We'll be flying city-to-city for the rest of this run, which is gonna be a big pain in the ass.

I woke up about 10km from the festival site. Today's show is at the Rock Am Ring Festival, with about 80,000 kids in attendance, just like yesterday. Slash and Jay-Z are both playing on our stage today, and I hope to see a few minutes of each set. My buddy Bobby Schneck plays guitar in Slash's band – hope to get some hang time with him at some point.

Got the office set up, and headed over to the Rage compound to grab a shower. On the way over, who do I run into but Herman The German, my old friend. I met Herman 9 years ago on my first tour accounting gig. I was with Slipknot, who were headlining the Pledge Of Allegiance Tour in 2001. He was doing security for the German band Rammstein, who were also on that tour. We later worked together for System Of A Down, and he's spent the last 3-4 years with Three Doors Down. So these days, he's become the Artist Rep for Gibson Guitars here in Germany and is here at the festival to meet all the musicians. He's got a big ol' showroom by the dressing room compound to show all the latest Gibson and Epiphone guitars and basses and whatnot to them.

Hang out with Herman for about half an hour getting caught up. Miss the guy. Before he got into touring, he owned a gym in Mannheim, and was a professional wrestler. I mean, he's a BIG DUDE! You can see him HERE.

Later on, I got to hang out with Bobby and get caught up with his world. Met a couple of the other guys in Slash's band, they're all nice kids.

Watched a few songs of Slash's set, but never saw Jay-Z. Busy doing other stuff. Plus, I'd seen him last year when he opened a few shows for Coldplay, who I was working for.

A few shots from today…

Andy, Slim and Mike (drum tech, guitar tech, monitor engineer) just before our set.

A shot from the drum riser:

Slim getting ready:

The show from up top:

Show over:

After the show, 2-hour drive to Koln (Cologne), into rooms for a couple hours of sleep, then we'll be leaving at 6am to go to the airport to fly to London.

Show Day in Nurnberg, Germany

2010-06-03T23:27:00.000-04:00

First show of our little tour today, headlining the Rock Im Park Festival here in Nurnburg. Our production office is so far away from the stage (half-mile or so), that I never even went to the stage. Didn't see the show, couldn't even hear the show, lol…

After packing up and loading out the office, we took off on the bus for tomorrow's show at the Nurburgring…

Production Day in Germany

2010-06-02T23:23:00.000-04:00

Made it to Frankfurt a little early, but one of the runways was closed for some reason, which caused us to be put in a holding pattern for about 30 minutes. No big deal, really, because we had people coming in on various flights over the next few hours. Once everyone lands and collects bags, we'll all take off on the crew bus for Nuremberg, Germany, where the Rock Im Park Festival is held.

Breezed through immigrations, and headed to baggage claim, where I'd spend the next 90 minutes. Yup, no luggage for me. Pisser! No luggage for Shirley, our Production Assistant, either.

Waited and waited and waited, then headed to the counter to do the paperwork. Funny thing, though, there was a BROWN bag about the size of my BLACK bag that, like mine, had bright yellow handle wraps on both handles. Hmmm…could it be that some moron took my bag because he was groggy and couldn't tell brown from black at this time of the morning? Why else would this bag be sitting her instead of with its rightful owner?

Thankfully, his luggage tag yielded a bit of info – his name, address, and most importantly, his phone number. The super-duper American Airlines guy called the number, but got voice mail in Sunnyvale, CA, where the dude lived. Within 15 minutes, though, someone called back and gave Mr. AA guy the dude's hotel info. Even better, the hotel was less than an hour away. Next, Mr. AA guy coordinated the return of my bag with the hotel's concierge.

And lucky me, my bag arrived about an hour later, just 15 minutes before we rolled away on our bus to make the two-hour drive to Nurnburg. I had a backpack with a few days of clothing and some mini-toiletries in it, so I could have gotten by, but being a moving target (moving city-to-city daily) makes it harder to have your luggage forwarded. Damn glad to get it back.

Next problem was an overturned truck on the autobahn, which turned our 2-hour drive into a 5.5-hour drive. Meaning there would be no chance to go by the hotel for showers/naps, etc. Bummer!

Straight to the Rock Im Park festival site to load in for tomorrow's show. I had the usual crap to do – set up the office, build a few Excel files, advance a few final items, etc. The band showed up and soundchecked around 7:30.

Finally got back to the hotel at midnight. Totally exhausted, but I still went down to the lobby bar and had a couple of Beck's drafts. Tasty stuff, indeed. No one else on the crew came down, so I chatted with the dude tending bar. They closed at 1am, at which point I grabbed one to go and headed to my room. After a bit of emails and web-surfing, I finally crashed out about 3am.

Travel Day to Germany

2010-06-01T23:59:00.000-04:00

Today started easy enough. My girlfriend Karen picked me up about 8:30 to head out to the airport. I had a 10:35 flight from Raleigh to Dallas, then a flight from there to Frankfurt, Germany. Kinda weird that I wasn't flying Raleigh to London to Frankfurt, but I suppose they wanted to keep the crew together for the long flight overseas.

This was the first time in many years I had to leave a girlfriend behind to go to work (gee, can you tell I haven't dated anyone in a while?), and I gotta say, I was a little wigged out about it. I'll be coping, and I guess she'll be coping, too.

The flight to Dallas was fine. I was in First Class. Read my hometown newspaper and was there in a flash. Hung out for an hour before any other crew folks started showing up, and by then, it was pretty much time to board for Germany.

I was in Business Class for the long haul, a ten-hour-and-forty-minute flight. Due to the fact that it was in the air on time at 2:40pm, it didn't really make sense for me to go to sleep, considering we'd be landing at 7:30am in Germany, which was 1:30am back home in Raleigh, not long after I'd typically go to sleep.

I watched a movie called "The Book Of Eli" and enjoyed it. Watched a few TV shows, and read a couple of newspapers. Even managed to take a nap for nearly an hour, which is sure to come in handy later…

Tick-tock, tick-tock...

2010-05-29T17:24:00.001-04:00

Standby...leaving for Europe on Tuesday...two week tour with Rage Against The Machine...followed by a week of vacation in the UK...

Show Day in Richmond, VA

2009-12-05T23:51:00.005-05:00

Our show tonight was at the Landmark Theater, known for many years as The Mosque. I'm sure it was a fabulous theater in its day, but it's badly in need of some TLC these days.

Now that the gig's done, we have only two shows remaining. I am seriously counting down the minutes until this tour is done.

I've decided to once again forego having a tour fly me home at the end next week. I'm gonna rent a car the morning after the St. Louis show and drive myself home instead. I'm just hoping the weather cooperates with me. Things may be a bit dodgy mid-week with the snow and whatnot.

Haven't decided where I'm gonna stop along the way or how many days I'll take to get back to Raleigh. We'll see. The one thing I can tell you is I'm going straight to Whole Foods the day after I get home and buying a mess o' garlic and onions and veggies and stuff and junk and things and all. I am "up to here" with tour catering and can't wait to be cooking my own food for a change.

I'd also like to throw a couple of parties while I'm home. Y'all come…

Turkey Day!

2009-12-03T23:58:00.003-05:00

Our 921-mile drive to Norfolk for today's day off started about 1:30am last night in Memphis, and came to an abrupt halt around 7:30 this morning about 20 miles east of Knoxville. That's when the second of the two wild turkeys that were flying across I-40 didn't quite clear the big ol' tour bus that was bearing down on it.

Alas, the bird is no more.

I was actually lying awake in my bunk, about to climb out, when it happened. Eugene, my driver got the bus off the road quickly and I went up front with Gratton to see what the heck was up. Blood, feathers and one helluva lot of broken glass was all over the place. That's what happens when a bird that weighs that much (females average 10 lbs., males 17 lbs.) collides with a sheet of glass traveling 70mph.

From the outside:

From the inside:

If that damn bird had hit about 2 feet to the right of where it did (on the other pane), all bets would have been off. If Eugene had been hit or sprayed with all that glass in his face, we could have been in deep shit! We were very, very lucky.

We sat there for about an hour and a half, while our fearless leader (Gratton) got Plans A, B, and C in the works. Plan C kinda came about at the last minute, when the bus company found a windshield available 20 miles behind us, back in Knoxville.

Four hours later, we were on the road again, and Eugene humped the 500 miles to Norfolk without a single stop.

Pulled up to the hotel at 10:15pm, dropped bags, and then Bill Sheppell (our FOH Engineer) and I split for Hooters for dinner and drinks, followed by walking about 8 blocks to some bar where my friend Gina Dalmas was playing a gig. We got to see the last 30-35 minutes of her show, then hung for a bit so I could visit with her. Back in my room about 1am or so…

Day Off in Little Rock, AR

2009-11-30T23:42:00.008-05:00

Whew! That's all I could say when I finally got off the bus this afternoon. Last night and today was a 960-mile submarine ride from Miami to Little Rock. We left the venue last night at 1:40am and arrived here at 4pm local time. That's 15 hours and 20 minutes, which is about 5 hours longer than anyone should be subjected to on a tour bus…

Went up and dropped my stuff, checked email and putzed around for a bit. Heading back downstairs to watch the Duck March at 5:00. A few crew folks who'd never stayed here or the Peabody in Memphis didn't believe me when I told them about it, so they showed up to see for themselves. You can read all about them HERE.

The ducks in the lobby fountain:

The Duck Master:

The ducks walking the red carpet:

The elevator, waiting to take them to their suite upstairs:

They take this stuff so seriously here that there are giant duck inlays on the roof of the lobby:

I was gonna have dinner in the hotel bar tonight, but the stench from cigarette and cigar smoke in there was unbelievable. Seriously, it was on par with Northside Billiards, the old man bar I hang out at sometimes back home. No fucking way I could eat a meal in a place that smells like that.

I would up down the street at a great sushi restaurant called Wasabi. They had a cool bar area with a big flatscreen TV, so I got to watch the Monday Night Football game while enjoying some great bait and a few Buds.

After dinner, I stopped by the bus to grab a couple of beers and took them to my room to watch the second half of the game. I don't like either team, but it was fun to see the New Orleans Saints kick the shit out of New England. Great way to end the night…

Show Day in Jacksonville, FL

2009-11-27T23:08:00.001-05:00

Yep, nine shows and counting down. I will be so glad when this is done. I really need some "me" time at home. Like three or four months worth.

I finally emailed the Coldplay folks the other day to tell them I won't be available to do the South American tour in February and March. I've never been there before, and hated to bail out on them, but I have so much work coming my way in a few months that if I don't take sanity time NOW, I won't get it at all.

Nothing much else to report today. Sorry I quit blogging for the last few weeks, I was just burnt out on it. I've been Facebooking regularly, though, so I’m easy to keep up with there. Just search for Bob Davis, Raleigh / Durham, NC. My current profile shot is actually a BD logo that looks like this:

Heading out to the bus for some bunky-time…

Thanksgiving Day in Jacksonville, FL

2009-11-26T23:51:00.000-05:00

Following 2 nights of shows in DC, we left last night around 2am for Jacksonville, Florida, about 710 miles away. Got into our rooms about 2pm. Nice way to spend a holiday, isolated from family and friends and loved ones back home. Oh, yeah, we're living the dream here!!!

I putzed around the room the rest of the afternoon, catching up on email and watching the lopsided football games on TV.

About 7, I walked about a mile to the Chart House, a high-end seafood restaurant. It was one of the few restaurants open around here. There was also a Hooters open about a block from the hotel, but I knew that most of the crew was going there and I didn't want to hang out with them.

Had a killer meal, sitting at the bar, being entertained by a lovely young lady named Tanya. They closed at 9, but I stayed until around 10:30, as it was slow there and Tanya said she enjoyed the company. (Yeah, right, had nothing to do with those tips I was laying on her on a slow bar night.)

It was nice to walk the mile back to the hotel. A bit cool for Florida, but I didn't mind a bit. Stuck my head in the bar back at the hotel, but none of the crew I'd have a drink with were in there, so I headed back to my room for some tube and internet surfing.

Nine shows left on the tour, the countdown's begun…

Paula Matthews Davis

2009-11-24T23:14:00.001-05:00

Today would have been Momzilla's 80th birthday. Thanks to the tobacco industry, she's no longer in the lives of the many people who loved her. In loving memory of Paula Matthews Davis, please don't smoke...

Goodbye, London! Hello, Raleigh!

2009-10-07T23:46:00.002-04:00

Yeah, I know, I'm slack. Never kept my blog up during the run of London shows. Probably because I never sat down and made time to write anything about it. Have to say, this has been by FAR the best vacation I've ever taken. Got to see 7 Mott The Hoople shows altogether (2 in Wales, 5 in London), and got to meet the entire band one afternoon during their rehearsals in Wales. Imagine doing the same with YOUR favorite band of all time…what a rush!

There are many details, too many really, to dig up about the last 10 days. Suffice to say, I had a blast.

Dave and I camped out for 5 nights at the K-West Hotel in Shepherd's Bush, a musician-friendly hotel I've stayed at before while touring. Great location, lots to do, tons of great restaurants and bars around, and only about 8-10 minutes by cab from the Hammersmith Apollo, the venue hosting the Mott shows.

Every night's show was a blast. I managed to video a bunch of the songs over the 5-night run. You can check out those vids on YouTube by searching my member name, ofifoto. Seventeen of the 21 videos that pop up on that search are mine – you'll see 'em.

Helen Johns, the Box Office Manager at the Apollo, was kind enough to give me passes to the venue's private VIP bar every night. This was great, as it was upstairs and away from the crowd. We pretty much spent every night in there, before and after the show. Various members of the band would show up after the show, along with a few of the celebrity rockers in attendance.

One night, Dave and I shared our bar table with Suggs (singer from Madness), Woody Woodmansey (drummer from David Bowie's Spiders From Mars band), Lisa Ronson (Mick Ronson's daughter), Glen Matlock (bass player from the Sex Pistols), and Gary Kemp (guitarist from Spandau Ballet). That's what it was like most every night.

There was no show on Sunday night (the 4th). That night, Dave dragged me out to dinner to meet a friend of his, who turned out to be Simon Kossoff, whose brother Paul Kossoff had been the guitarist for the band Free (I'm sure you know "All Right Now") and after they disbanded, Backstreet Crawler. Had it not been for the Mott shows, that may have been my favorite night in London.

The night of the final show (the 6th), I changed hotels out to the Sheraton by Heathrow, so I could avoid the long commute from central London to the airport this morning.

For now, it's back to work. Had an 11am flight today, London to Boston to Raleigh. Got home around 6pm, started some laundry, and dashed out the door to go see Robin Trower at the Lincoln Theatre. Wow, what a show – close your eyes and it's 1978 all over again. Robin played a nice mix of new and old songs, and lucky for me, the old ones were heavy on tunes from my fave album of his, "Bridge of Sighs."

More posts soon…

Mott The Hoople - Show #2

2009-09-26T23:25:00.005-04:00

Back for a second night in Monmouth!

"Hymn For The Dudes" the show opener

"I Wish I Was Your Mother"

Ian playing the Maltese Cross guitar duing "Walking With A Mountain”

Ian playing a 1956 Les Paul, Junior during "All The Young Dudes”

Mott The Hoople - Show #1

2009-09-25T23:20:00.003-04:00

Dave and I split for Monmouth around 2:30, this time leisurely making our way there. Having driven to the rehearsals yesterday, we knew the lay of the land a bit more and knew exactly where the Blake Theatre was, along with the nearby car park.

Arrived and parked up a few minutes before 5. Immediately ran into Pete Dutton, the FOH guy, and chatted him up for a few minutes. Then we were off to explore the village’s high street (main road). Checked a few menus as we made our way down to the end of the street, where we popped into The Robin Hood, a fairly large pub.

Had a couple of pints, and then wandered down the street. Decided to go ghetto for dinner, so we grabbed sandwiches and crisps (potato chips) from Waitrose (grocery store) and sat and ate them on a bench along the high street. Probably looked like a couple of vagrants to the locals, lol…

After we finished, we walked back over to the venue and made our way in. The lobby bar’s beer selection was pretty limited. I had a Stella, but it tasted like ass, so I switched to Beck’s. No beers allowed in the auditorium. WTF? That kinda sucked but it’s a real nice place, so I kinda understand.

As we were standing there chatting, Joe Elliott (the singer from Def Leppard) came strolling in with a buddy of his. Five minutes later, I’m engaged in conversation with him and he turned out to be a totally ordinary, nice guy. Like me, Joe’s a lifelong Mott fan. We talked about the Maltese Cross guitar he gave Ian Hunter for his 70th birthday back in June. Said he had two of them made, one for Ian and one for himself. We chatted a bit about our favorite Mott songs, and I made three or four attempts to excuse myself from the conversation and leave him alone, but he kept grabbing my arm to prevent me from walking away. He was SO excited about seeing Mott, maybe as much as I was.

Like me & Dave, he’s going to all 7 shows, the 2 warm-ups here in Monmouth and the 5 shows in London. He’ll even be opening one of the London shows, the last one (Oct. 6), as Joe Elliott’s Down & Outz. The band consists of Joe and members of The Quireboys. Just a one-off gig, not a new project or anything.

He said he’s wanted to see Mott since he was a 12-year old kid, listening to them on the radio. I can relate, except that I was 15 when I became a fan.

Finally slipped away from him, found Dave, and we made our way in. Great seats, except for the guy in front of me, who was easily 6’7” if he was an inch. I couldn’t see a fucking thing with him there, so I went back and stood by the mix position. It was only 4 rows back, so it was fine. Plus, I could see everything from there!

Dave stayed in the seats, kind of sitting across both, such that he could see just fine. With both of us there, though, he couldn’t do that.

The show was awesome. There were a few tunes that both Dave and I wish had been included, like “Thunderbuck Ram” and “Death May Be Your Santa Claus” but overall, it was a great set.

Here’s the setlist from the first Mott The Hoople show (with Ralpher and Phally) since 1973. Thirty-six friggin’ years!

There was no opening act and the show had a 10pm curfew, so we made it back to Dave’s house shortly before 1am.

What a day! I’m in heaven…

Meeting Mott The Hoople - Wow!!!

2009-09-24T23:23:00.005-04:00

Wow, indeed! I don’t even know what to think about today. At the invitation of the band’s sound engineer, Pete Dutton, Dave and I traveled 93 miles from his house this morning to Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, Wales. That’s where Mott The Hoople has been rehearsing for the last couple of weeks. Today’s the last day of rehearsal – the first of the two warm-up shows is tomorrow night, also in Monmouth, at the 434-seat Blake Theatre.

After parking the car, Dave and I first ran into Sid, Mick Ralphs’ long-standing guitar tech. Sid knew Dave, so he walked us around back, where we walked up to a group of folks sitting around, outside the back door to one of the studio buildings.

There sat Ian Hunter and Mick Ralphs, along with a couple of crew guys. Introductions were made all around. I reminded Mick that we had met at the Bad Company show in Raleigh back in June, where I had told him that I planned to attend all of the London Mott shows. He had laughed then, and he laughed again today.

Ian was awesome. He’s quite the friendly bloke, and very fit, considering he turned 70 during early June.

A fellow came walking out the door and walked right up to me and said “Hi, I’m Martin Chambers.” I’d recognized him as soon as I saw him, and was floored at how friendly he is. Martin, of course, has played drums for the Pretenders since the band started. Amazing drummer, and now, an amazingly nice guy.

Turns out that Buffin, Mott’s drummer, is having a few minor medical issues that will prevent him from participating in the reunion shows. There’s a slight chance he may play a bit at the Hammersmith shows, but that’s a decision that will be made daily during that run of shows.

After a few minutes everyone made their way inside. Pete “Overend” Watts, Mott’s bass player looked up at Dave and I, and asked who we were. Dave had interviewed Overend a few years ago when he was working on his book “Heavy Load” (about the band Free), but they’d never met in person. Well, Overend lit up like a Christmas tree and started treating Dave like they were old friends from long ago.

I introduced myself to Verden Allen, the keyboard player. We know each other a bit through MySpace. He knows me as Bobzilla and laughed that I was a normal human being in spite of the name.

The band ran through bits and pieces of a few tunes, and the whole time, all the hair on the back of my neck was standing on end. When they did “Hymn For The Dudes” I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.

As all bands do, they had some nuts and bolts bits to work on, so Dave and I were very politely ushered back out through the open door to the patio in order to give them more privacy. The good news was that we could still hear every note.

After about 20 more minutes, they took a break (Verden was having issues with his Leslie cabinet), and most scurried outside for a smoke.

Turned out the rehearsal was over, so then we all just hung out and the real fun started. Dave and I helped a couple of their crew guys load a dozen cases of backline gear in the truck, and then spent about 45 minutes talking to Ian and Overend.

I asked Ian about his old “H” guitar and the Maltese Cross one. He told me the story of finding the original Maltese Cross one in a pawnshop in San Francisco many years ago. He paid $75.00 for it. What a hoot!

He said he’d recently received a new one as a gift from Joe Elliott (the singer for Def Leppard and a huge Mott fan himself). He excused himself for a minute and went inside, reemerging with the guitar. Here’s Ian and the Maltese Cross guitar.

My favorite anecdote of the afternoon was Ian telling a story about Mick Ralphs quitting Bad Company back in the day. BadCo’s singer Paul Rodgers, a kinda small fellow, is well known as an insufferable bastard, and when he was quitting, Mick said to Paul, “Life’s too short…and so are you!” Hahahaha…

Dave asked if they would be playing “Thunderbuck Ram”, but Ian said that Mick’s voice had dropped an octave over the years. Tough song for him to sing back THEN, so pretty much impossible now. Dave laughed and told him they should do it as an instrumental, instead.

Overend asked me where I was from, and after I told him, he said, “And you’ve come all the way here for THIS?” I told him I wouldn’t miss it for the world. He responded, “But what if we’re shite?” to which we all laughed. It was then decided that they needed to make t-shirts for the London shows that said “What If We’re Shit?” on them. He was genuinely astounded that I wanted to attend all 7 shows. All I could say to that was “You have no idea what your music has meant to me for all these years.” I swear he blushed a bit as he smiled and reached out to grab my shoulder.

There were many more stories, and I was thrilled to be able to hang out with those guys today. It was the highlight of my year!

Tomorrow – first warm-up show…

First Day of Vacation

2009-09-20T23:51:00.000-04:00

Yay! The tour is done. Finished last night with the second of two nights at Wembley Stadium. Total attendance over two nights was 141,794. That, my friends, is crazy!

I’m on holiday in the UK for the next 17 days. I’ll be spending the first 11 of those staying at my buddy Dave Clayton’s house in Charlton, down in Dorset, about 2 hours southwest of London. After that, 6 days in London attending all 5 of the Mott The Hoople 40th Anniversary reunion shows at the Hammersmith Apollo. Dave will be joining me for those.

In addition, we have tickets to the two warm-up shows the band is playing at the Blake Theatre (434-capacity) in Monmouth, Wales on September 25th & 26th. Seven Mott shows in total.

Best. Vacation. Ever.

Production Day in Dublin

2009-09-13T23:37:00.002-04:00

Had to get away from the venue at a reasonable time tonight. Because one cannot go do Dublin and not go out for a fresh pint (or 8) of Guinness.

Julie and me, imbibing...

Show Day in Manchester

2009-09-12T23:11:00.007-04:00

Ste McNally, one of the three guys from BBMak (the band I tour managed back in 2000), came out to visit tonight. He brought me a disc with tons of photos and videos from the year we spent together. I really miss those guys, but I don't miss being a tour manager. It was fun to go through that stuff - brought back a lot of good memories.

Jim and Peanut, the two riggers who ride my bus…

Had a killer office here yesterday and today, with a great view of the stage. Just before doors, and just before showtime…

Jay-Z, our main support act tonight, on stage…

Travel Day to Manchester

2009-09-11T23:03:00.001-04:00

Sunrise on the ferry, en route to Manchester…

Show Day in Nijmegen

2009-09-10T23:59:00.000-04:00

Today’s the second of two shows here in Nijmegen, Holland, birthplace of Eddie and Alex Van Halen. Can you believe this place has not one single statue, plaque, or other type of recognition of that fact? I can’t.

Got a couple of cool shots from stage right tonight…

Show Day in Paris

2009-09-07T23:43:00.003-04:00

Got a final shot of the Eiffel Tower this morning as we were leaving the hotel. Wish I had a couple more days off here…

Spot operators doing their thing up on the delay towers:

Wonder what they’re gonna do with all those leftover beers they poured. Hmmmm...

Production Day in Paris

2009-09-06T23:28:00.005-04:00

Photo of me, standing next to a HUGE cell tower I found a few blocks from the hotel.

Went to dinner tonight with Mick and Eric ( merch guys), and Jackie (security). Everyone wanted Mussels and Frites. We wanted to go to Leon’s, but there was a line out the door, and since the place next door had no line, we went there instead. Mick and Eric:

In the contest of Bob vs. the Mussels, Bob won in overtime:

After we got done with dinner, we went next door to Leon's for dessert and ANOTHER POT OF MUSSELS. Seriously, after we had dinner, we went and had dinner again. Hahahaha...

OK, just one pot of mussels, and just to compare.

Next time, we'll stand in line at Leon's. 'Nuff said...

Show Day in Bern, Switzerland

2009-09-02T23:44:00.004-04:00

This, folks, this is a road case for a couch. Yep, you heard me right, a couch.

We have one truck out here (out of a current count of 34 trucks) that carries nothing but furniture and other dressing room crap. And there are 2 guys (Ian and David) who do nothing but deal with dressing room ambience.

Took this shot from stage right tonight. Good view of the crowd.

Here's Andy Bramley, our Video Director, doing his thing during the show.

And this is our Video Engineer Ed Jarman, doing likewise.

I almost missed bus call tonight. The load-out went way faster than normal. Suddenly, it was 2:15am and someone on my bus called me on the radio to tell me that all the other buses were gone and they were sitting at the gate waiting for me. I'd been so busy websurfing and talking to R. Kelly's Tour Manager that I hadn't noticed that everyone was done. D'oh!

Travel Day to Bern, Switzerland

2009-09-01T23:17:00.005-04:00

By now, you should know I don't sleep very much on buses. Got to sleep just past 4am, and was up this morning by 7:45.

Went up front to sit and watch the countryside roll by. I think my two favorite drives in the world are the Canadian Rocky Mountains and the Swiss Alps. I've been lucky enough this year to do them both.

Mountains so tall, they reach up and touch the sky…

It is just so beautiful here. I would love to come live here for a short time, even if only for a few months.

We went through one tunnel this morning that was 17km (10.5 miles) long. I thought we'd never get back to daylight.

Show Day in Udine, Italy

2009-08-31T23:20:00.006-04:00

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…

Production Day in Udine, Italy

2009-08-30T23:03:00.006-04:00

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…

Production Day in Munich, Germany

2009-08-28T23:12:00.000-04:00

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

Show Day in Dusseldorf, Germany

2009-08-27T23:48:00.009-04:00

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:

Show Day in Hannover, Germany

2009-08-25T23:16:00.009-04:00

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...

2009-08-24T23:56:00.000-04:00

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…

Travel Day to Hannover, Germany

2009-08-23T23:32:00.001-04:00

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…

Show Day in Stockholm, Sweden

2009-08-22T23:08:00.009-04:00

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.)

Just Another Day At Work

2009-08-21T23:12:00.003-04:00

In Stockholm. We might as well be Little Rock, Arkansas for what little I'm seeing of the place at this point.

Got done about 8pm and headed back to the hotel. Emailed my friend Tatiana, who came out and met me and some other crew folks at the pub down the street for drinks, turning an otherwise boring day into quite a bit more fun…

-----------------

I'm getting a bit behind on posting photos, so I'm gonna try to just dump a few in here and there. These below are just a few random shots from our gig in Bergen, Norway on the 19th:

Jens, our barricade guy:

Delay tower:

Travel Day to Stockholm

2009-08-20T23:34:00.006-04:00

Another crazy, all-day drive to the next city. Today's a 16-plus hour drive to Stockholm. This one's worth it though, because when you're done, you're in…Stockholm!

I had my own personal movie festival on the bus today, courtesy of my 17" MacBookPro and some killer Etymotic Research earphones. I watched:

Terminator Salvation
Because I Said So (with Mandy Moore)
License To Wed (yep, more Mandy Moore)
Across The Universe

Watching all those made the day just fly by. And yes, I'm obsessed with Mandy Moore. Have been, ever since I met her back in 2000. She was only 15 at the time, and she was totally cool and nice and dorky (in a good way). Got to hang out with her for a while at a show where she was on the bill along with the band I was tour managing that year. She was so sweet and I became a fan for life.

A couple of shots from one of the stops we made...

A shop/restaurant with a natural roof.

The lake it was located next to.

At one point we drove through a tiny little town that had this river running through it.

View out the bus window late afternoon.

This building was on the fringe of Stockholm (if my memory serves me well...).

Made it to our hotel in central Stockholm around 8:30. Checked email, had a shower, and then hit the Skybar on the 9th floor – ever so conveniently, I was in room 934, three doors away.

Had a few beers and called it a night…

Show Day in Bergen, Norway

2009-08-19T23:45:00.005-04:00

My buddy Eugene took that "floating head" shot I posted the other day and did this with it.

And then my Facebook friend Allison took it and turned me into this:

Thanks, y'all…

We've got fireworks at the end of the show every night, but today at noon, we had a different kind of fireworks. There was a dignitary in town today who was worthy of a 21-gun salute and the cannons were atop the hill at our show site. And you better believe those bad boys were LOUD!

Our fireworks guy, setting our stuff off at the end of the night.

Production Day in Bergen, Norway

2009-08-18T23:18:00.012-04:00

Today started slow because most of our office cases were still on the trucks, to I snapped a couple of photos and messed around on the computer while waiting for them.

Tomorrow show is being held in downtown Bergen (on museum grounds), about two blocks from our hotel. Our stage, under construction.

I even got time to go through some more of the photos from yesterday's long drive to get here…

Quick, follow that bus.

Traveling through the mountains, there was actually some snow up on the hills.

Seems that the mountain folks here in Norway have some sort of fascination with trolls. One of the places we stopped had quite a collection of them, both on display and for sale.

Had to sit at a road repair/construction spot for a few minutes, so the smokers piled out of the bus for a ciggie and a couple of us got off to shoot photos. The stream by the road.

One of our carpenters, Minh, with the flagperson.

Travel Day to Bergen, Norway

2009-08-17T23:14:00.001-04:00

Got in my bunk around 4am last night. Up at 9 sharp, not that I wanted to be. Went up front to see the sights and was told by the driver that we were travelling through Sweden at the moment.

Then came the rain.

Hit a service stop a few hours later. That's Jim Ude, one of our riggers, contemplating the nuggets, hotdogs, hamburgers and other assorted goodies.

Meanwhile, inside the store the burger stand was attached to, you have a wide variety of European chocolates and other goodies.

Cool bridge along the way, somewhere in Sweden.

Later, as we made it to the Norweigian border.

Finally pulled up to the hotel at 1:30am. Freakin' TWENTY-ONE-AND-A-HALF hours trapped on the submarine.

Oh, yeah, this is livin' the dream…

Jim Dickinson, R.I.P.

2009-08-16T23:38:00.000-04:00

The bad news that started my day was finding out that Jim Dickinson died yesterday. You may or may not have heard OF the man, but you have certainly heard the man. That was Jim playing piano on the Rolling Stones' song "Wild Horses." Also played on the Flamin' Groovies classic "Teenage Head." And he produced the best record The Replacements ever did, called "Pleased To Meet Me." If you don't own that record, you should. Jim was a Memphis legend his whole life alright.

You can read a little more about him HERE.

Finally checked out of the non air-conditioned Scandic this morning. I got off fairly light on my incidentals, too. Freakin' draft beers were over 12 bucks a pop in the bar, but I got out for only $203 USD. Not much considering a bought rounds a couple of times. I limited myself to only 2 beers a night because they're so expensive. And I'm so cheap…sometimes.

Walked around the venue before doors, taking a few photos of this and that…

Beer vendors prepping for the crowd:
The crowd will buy them there, and return them here:

I love these European 4-man urinals. Sometimes, in certain cities, you'll see them sitting in a town square. Just walk right up, hang a turkey neck, and go...

Our GINORMOUS 140-foot wide stage:

Black-lit confetti storm during the first encore:

First show went well tonight. It felt strange not doing my own show settlement for the first time in oh, twenty years. Uwe handled all of that, while I was quite content to carry on with lots of other bits of the tour accounting kingdom.

Hung out in the office, goofing off online while waiting for the stagehands to come get my case. I don't like to leave my office until I know my stuff is safely on it's way – in most venues, I'd just wheel it to the loading dock myself, but we're in a trailer in a field for a lot of the current shows. Hands, it is.

Finally headed out to the bus around 3am. Gonna be a tough drive to Norway. We've got so many trucks that there isn't any ferry space for the buses, so we're having to drive around the long way. Long, as in 20 hours long. That's a Hell Ride trapped on the 45-foot submarine. We likely won't get to the hotel until well after midnight tonight. And to top it off, those last 5-6 hours of roads getting into Bergen are mounainous enough to make for a shitty ride. Off we go…

Almost To The First Show Day

2009-08-15T23:56:00.001-04:00

Not much to report. Been going to the gig every day and getting stuff done. Still working on US tour paperwork, whch I'd like to get wrapped up by tomorrow, our first gig day.

Back to the hotel by 9:30 tonight, where I took this floating head photo while websurfing in my room...

More Mott The Hoople Excitement...

2009-08-14T23:05:00.000-04:00

Scored more Mott The Hoople tickets today. My buddy Dave Clayton, whose house I'm staying at during my vacation time in the UK, got online this morning and got us a pair of tickets to the Mott warmup show, being held September 26th at the Blake Theatre in Monmouth, Wales. The Blake is a 434-seat theatre. I'm totally jazzed.

After the warmup show, I'll be attending all 5 of the London shows, being held at the Hammersmith Apollo. That's how I'm spending MY vacation…

Les Paul, R.I.P.

2009-08-13T23:52:00.000-04:00

Les Paul, of the namesake Gibson guitar model, died today at the age of 94. If you don't know the name, do yourself a favor and check out THIS and THIS and THIS.

I had the pleasure of meeting him in 1976 and again in 1998. A fine fellow indeed, and he had a great sense of humor, too.

Walmart Bingo!

2009-08-12T23:34:00.004-04:00

I freakin' hate Walmart. I mean everything about them. But I like this…You'll need to click on the photo and enlarge it in order to read all the goodness...

Oh, by the way, you've seen this photo, right? I mean, it was all over the internet and the joke emails a couple of years ago:

Well, who'da thunk it, but there's finally a follow-up shot of that lovely family. And here ya go:

Production Day in Herning, Denmark

2009-08-11T23:27:00.004-04:00

The gig is about 30 minutes away from the hotel. I was gonna jump in one of the two 10am shuttles, per instructions from our production assistant, but there wasn't enough room for the number of people who had to go over. All the other guys were essential to the work being done today, whereas I wasn't, so I bailed out and had to wait for a later vehicle.

While I was waiting, I took a 45-minute walk around the neighborhood. Not much here, but the houses were pretty cool.

Once I got to the gig (around noon), I walked out front and took a photo of our massive stage, still under construction:

It's massive. 140-feet wide, and I don't know how tall. On the way back to my office, I came across this truck, one of 37 that we have on the tour:

Spent the rest of the day and evening setting up my office and getting some work done. Back to the hotel by about 11pm…

Still Traveling...

2009-08-10T23:41:00.002-04:00

Made it to Heathrow in one piece. Me and Julie hit the Starbucks for drinks and sammiches. Next flight was to Copenhagen.

Copenhagen Airport terminal:

Once there, we were off again on a flight to Billund, Denmark. And we made it there, in about 35 minutes of flying time. Problem was, our luggage didn’t. Don't know what it is about Copenhagen, but it's always the black hole of luggage.

I flew there in 2004 to start a European tour with Metallica and it took 3 freakin' days for me to get my luggage. Ever since that flight, I've always flown with a backpack to make sure I have a few days worth of clothing and toiletries with me, no matter what. Which came in very handy today.

Took almost an hour to get to our hotel in Silkeborg by way of the show runner who picked us up in a van. All in all, 19 hours door-to-door, Miami hotel to Silkeborg hotel.

Bad news for me – this hotel has NO air-conditioning. None, nada, zilch. Gonna be a long week, laying in a pool of sweat every night. Nothing I can do is gonna change it.

So I threw the window wide open and went to the bar, because...

Travel Day to Denmark

2009-08-09T23:38:00.001-04:00

Long, long day. Never left the room until 6:30pm, when we headed to the airport. "We" being me and Julie. Fin had gone over to the airport earlier – he was also on our 8:45pm flight. Everyone else who travelled to Miami with us was on the 5:20 flight.

When we got to the terminal, we saw that their flight was delayed until about the same time as ours. They had to sit around the terminal an extra 3 hours. Not fun for them.

My flight was on British Airways. I was in Business Class. On the first row up in the dome of the 747, just outside the cockpit. My seat:

Watched a movie called "Duplicity" (Julia Roberts & Clive Owen), and had dinner before trying to fall asleep. Yeah, right, like that's gonna happen.

As always, I more or less tossed and turned for a couple of hours, dozing off for a few minutes here and there.

I can't sleep on planes for shit…

Day Off in Miami

2009-08-08T23:25:00.000-04:00

Made it to Miami early afternoon. Only my bus came down here. The production manager, riggers, carpenters and stage manager are doing the cross-load of all the Europe-bound gear here. The other three buses went to Washington DC so the rest could fly over today (we'll fly tomorrow).

I went out to walk around the neighborhood and 'bout died. It musta been 100 freakin' degrees and the humidity was waaay up there. Gladly went back to my room and would have spent the rest of the night there, except Julie and Tiffany called and asked if I wanted to go to dinner with them.

Off to the mall we went. It was about 10 minutes away by cab, and the place was absolutely packed! Nutso! Realizing full well that I probably haven't been in any mall on a Saturday night in a bazillion years, I was still stunned at how many people were there.

We ate at a Sushi restaurant that was really good, and then the girls spent some time shopping while I lolligagged around, just people-watching.

Grabbed a cab back to the hotel, where I retired to my room and finished off the bottle of wine I'd been given by the hotel manager upon arrival. I'd started it this afternoon, and now I was on a mission…

Show Day in Charlotte

2009-08-07T23:24:00.000-04:00

My sister Donna and her gang came out tonight. Also, my old buddy from my record store days in the 70's, Chris Pittman with his lovely wife, who is also named Donna.

Another friend from way back, Pete Davis (no relation) couldn't make it, but his girlfriend and 3 of her friends came out. On top of that, I got a mid-afternoon phone call from a girl I dated in the 70's, who said she was coming to the show with her 16 year-old son.

But wait, there's more…

Kim Whitford, wife of Aerosmith guitarist Brad Whitford, came out with two of her friends.

So once again, I spent time running around, making sure everyone got passes and good seats and knew where the Friends & Family room was located.

Crazy night, and when it was over and all my peeps had split, we found out that our show in Tampa on Sunday was being cancelled. That meant that tonight was our last show before heading to Europe. Bummer, I really needed that workday in Tampa to finish off some work.

Oh, well, we roll with it…

Show Day in Raleigh

2009-08-06T23:21:00.000-04:00

Hometown show for me tonight. Spent a whole lot of time taking care of friends and making sure they got to the Friends & Family room for drinks and snacks. Pretty sure most of my friends enjoyed the show, seeing the band for their first time. I even got a little hang time after the show, which was nice.

Off to bunky world about 2:30, heading to Charlotte. Another night of friends to look forward to at the show there tomorrow night…

Another Day Off at Home

2009-08-05T23:48:00.001-04:00

Woke up around 6am, lots to do. Shopping, laundry, banking, stack o' mail, more laundry, repacking for Europe, etc. Lots…

Managed to accomplish about a million tasks today, which was good cuz I won't be home again until after October 10th.

Closed up the house again, and Foy picked me up to go down the hill and meet the gang for dinner on the Ale House deck. We were there for nearly three hours, then I got driven downtown to the Sheraton (the crew hotel), where I opted to stay tonight in order to make bus call on time tomorrow. Staying at home would have been a distraction and it would have been harder to get a ride tomorrow than tonight.

Won't see my friends for the next two months, bummer…

Day Off at Home

2009-08-04T23:41:00.001-04:00

Long bus ride overnight from Mansfield, Massachusetts to Raleigh, but I'm home for a day and a half. Yippee!

The bus dropped everyone at the Sheraton Hotel downtown, and I was gonna jump in a cab to get home (5 minutes away), but my awesome driver Charlie insisted (repeatedly) that he was gonna drive me to my house on the bus. I finally gave up arguing with him, so off we went.

Charlie, evil funny man that he is, as soon as he turned the corner, he started in on the airhorn and continued to blast it all the way down my street. I live on a 900-foot long street and he was taking his sweet time, too. Good thing it was 3:30 in the afternoon, so few people were home to gawk out their windows at the big ol' tour bus rumbling down the road, haha.

Charlie and my bus, pulling away from the house:

After he dropped me, I went into a frenzy. I have so many things to get done today and tomorrow, and not nearly enough time to do them all. I'll do what I do and to heck with the rest of it.

Tonight was our end-of-tour-leg crew dinner, held at Fins, an awesome downtown restaurant. We had the entire place to ourselves, which was cool. I wasn't planning on attending, but around 6, I changed my mind and called Paige to drag her out for it.

Spending the night in my own bed tonight, which will be nice…

Show Day in Jersey City

2009-08-02T23:37:00.004-04:00

Today's show was at the All Points West Festival in Jersey City, NJ. They should have called it the All Mud Festival. Today was the eighth straight day of rain here, and the place was a royal mess. A lot of crew people threw away their shoes after the show, because they were completely ruined. Me, I'm a cheap bastard – I'll at least try to wash my Merrills. Not expecting great results, but they're new, so I gotta give it a shot.

Something strange about today's show – there were NO showers on the site, anywhere! Even the very worst, filthiest, nastiest festival site I've ever been to had showers for the crew. At most of the European festivals, there's usually a trailer with showers. You might come out dirtier than you went in, but at least you had running water to get under.

I made the promoter buy six rooms at the nearby Westin for the crew to shower at once the load-out was completed.

Had some killer views from the festival site. Here's what the bands saw when they were onstage:

View of NYC from the northern tip of the site:

View of Lady Liberty's backside:

Show Day in Montreal

2009-08-01T23:32:00.001-04:00

Some shots I took from the side of the stage tonight:

Day Off in Montreal

2009-07-31T23:48:00.004-04:00

Watched a drug transaction go down this afternoon from my hotel window. One dude walking up the sidewalk, one dude walking down the sidewalk. The movie-cliched subtle handoff of a tiny plastic baggie in one direction, folded up currency in the other. Just for shits and giggles, I rapped on my window (from the third floor) to get their attention. Big Brother is always watching, ya know?

We went over to tomorrow's festival site mid-afternoon to load in and set up offices. Around 8:00 or so, my friend Wendy came to pick me up to go to dinner - Wendy's the Production Assistant on the Josh Groban tour. Went to a cool little place called Maestro SVP in a neighborhood a few blocks from the hotel that was called The Plateau. This neighbor is ground-zero for nightlife in Montreal. The entire area was crawling with people and got more and more crowded as the evening wore on.

We had a killer table, right out front, perfect for watching the parade of humanity streaming by. It was a long, leisurely dinner that stretched until well after midnight. I was enjoyed the people-watching as much as the food and the company. Had a killer dish called Louisiana Seafood. It consisted of mussels, clams, black tiger shrimp, scallops, salmon and calamari all served in a cream white wine and cajun spice reduction. Yummy…

Oh, yeah, here are a few more photos of everyone's buddy, Robert Kearns, playing with Lynyrd Skynyrd last Friday night in Raleigh. Boy looks like he's been in the band forever.
Photo credit on all: Jimmy Bennett

Show Day in Toronto

2009-07-30T23:27:00.001-04:00

Tonight's show was at the Rogers Center, the Toronto Blue Jay's baseball stadium. It's a big, big place. More that 45,000 in attendance tonight. That's a LOT of people. But they're Canadian, so the crowd was roughly equivalent to 41,418 Americans, based on today's conversion rate.

What it looks like when 45,000 people have trashed a baseball stadium during a concert:

Show Day in Saratoga Springs, NY

2009-07-27T23:18:00.002-04:00

Today's show is at the SPAC – the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. It's one of the very few amphitheatres you'll ever see that has a balcony up underneath the roof that covers the seats. How cool is that?

Not a great photo (bad lighting, taken with my iPhone), but you get the idea.

Got the call of the wild today – looks like R. Kelly's going out again in Oct./Nov./Dec. Perfect timing since the band I'm currently with just postponed their November dates until February.

Border crossing first thing in the morning, going into Canada for a few days…

Travel Day to Saratoga Springs, NY

2009-07-26T23:58:00.001-04:00

We pulled out of Alpine Valley last night at 2:15am. Took until 7:30 tonight to get to our hotel in Saratoga Springs, NY. That, my friends, is what we refer to as a submarine ride. A bit over 17 hours on a bus is about 9 hours longer than I ever want to be on it.

Grabbed dinner right across the street from the hotel with the riggers, then a nightcap at the hotel bar before heading upstairs to my private pillow party.

Kinda wished I'd hung out in the bar a little longer. Crosby, Stills, & Nash are playing here in a couple of days, at the same venue we're doing tomorrow night. Some of their crew were in the bar, along with the man himself, Stephen Stills.

Ed Jarman, a lovely, charming Englishman (who is our Video Crew Chief) was there, and when Bash (our drum tech) introduced Ed to Stephen Stills, Ed said to him, "Ahright then, whattayou do, you a truck driva?"

I would have fallen down laughing if I had been standing there. God help him, Ed had no idea who Stephen Stills was. I heard that Stills actually slapped his forehead and said, "You really don't know who I am, do you?"

Seriously folks, you can't make this shit up…

Show Day at Alpine Valley

2009-07-25T23:08:00.005-04:00

Marguerite being adorable on the bus last night:That's rigger Chuck's t-shirt she's foolin' with.

Today's show is at Alpine Valley Amphitheatre in East Troy, Wisconsin. On August 27, 1990, mere seconds after taking off, the helicopter carrying Stevie Ray Vaughan crashed about ¼ mile from the backstage area. The crash site was just on the other side of the hill you see in the photos below.

A closer view:

I get bummed out every time I come to this place. Rest in peace, Stevie...

Show Day in St. Louis

2009-07-24T23:14:00.001-04:00

Sure wish I'd been at home tonight. My buddy Robert came through Raleigh with Lynyrd Skynyrd, who he plays bass for. I haven't seen him with them yet, but I'm sure he's just killin' it. My buddy Van took this photo and emailed it to me. The shirt Robert's wearing is from the bar Van owns, Slims.

Best Birthday Ever!!!

2009-07-23T23:12:00.000-04:00

Or maybe not…

I rarely ever sit up with my bus mates after the show, but since today is my birthday, I decided to have a few beers last night as we left Houston, bound for St. Louis.

Finally went to bed around 4:15am this morning, but I woke up 7:00 because the bus wasn't moving. Got up to see what was wrong, and found out from Charlie that we were broken down on the side of I-35 near Denton, TX. One of the engine sensors was malfunctioning and causing the motor to shut down. Charlie was on the phone with a service tech for some time, and made multiple attempts to "re-boot" the bus, all to no avail.

After sitting there for about 90 minutes, Charlie found out that the field tech wouldn't be able to get there for another two-and-a-half hours, so the decision was made to toss the 10 people who live on my bus onto the other buses and send them on their way.

I jumped onto bus 3 with Julie, Marguerite, and Russell. That made 16 passengers on a bus that I would consider uncomfortably crowded with 10. My mind went into overdrive. Buy a flight? Rent a car? There had to be something, anything better than sitting on a supercrowded bus. Surely we would be traveling through or near some cities and/or airports where cars could be rented or flights could be taken.

I checked the map and found that Oklahoma City was about 140 miles ahead of us. Perfect! Before everyone on this bus started waking up and crowding the front and rear lounges, I'd be off the bus and either driving or flying.

Marguerite called the travel agent, who put 2 SUV's on hold, and snagged the last four seats on a late-afternoon flight from OKC to St. Louis.

Before we got to the OKC airport, she, Julie and Russell changed their minds about flying. I told Fin (production manager) and Kurt (stage manager) about my scheme and they both decided to join me.

Twenty minutes later, the buses pulled off the highway in OKC long enough for the three of us to jump off at a Ramada Inn. Fin fast-talked the front desk folks into having the shuttle driver to drive us to the airport even though we weren't guests of the hotel, hahaha.

The three of us spent the afternoon in the terminal getting caught up on work. Nice, plush chairs with power outlets, fast wireless internet service, and plenty of restaurants nearby. Awesome.

Our 5:20 flight eventually got off the ground around 6:30. We made it to the St. Louis hotel about 8:45. After dropping bags, I walked around a bit, eventually running into Chuck and Gabe, our riggers. Had dinner and a few drinks with them and made it back to my room before 11:00.

A birthday I won't soon forget, I can assure you…

Show Day in Houston

2009-07-22T23:09:00.000-04:00

The birthday wishes started pouring in today via email and Facebook. Thanks to all who remembered!

At the moment of my birth, which was 1:05am EST on the 23rd (just after midnight, local time tonight), I slipped away from my office, grabbed a beer off the bus, and went and sat on a bench by the waterway behind the venue.

Sitting there, I spent a few minutes reflecting on what an amazing life I have. I’m surrounded by many wonderful friends at home in Raleigh. I have various amazing "road" families I get to spend time with, touring all over the world. I have friends in faraway places, both all over the USA and foreign lands such as the UK, Germany, France, Canada, Australia and even Japan.

I have the job of my dreams. It allows me to travel and affords me pretty much anything I want - within reason that is, but I have simple tastes.

I don't currently have "that special someone" to share my life with, but I've had many great loves in my life and hope to have at least one more.

Yes, my life is a good life. I want for nothing. I am truly blessed…

Show Day in Dallas

2009-07-21T23:54:00.002-04:00

Show in Dallas today at the former Smirnoff Amphitheatre. Before that, it was the Starplex, which is what I still call it. Damn sponsor names seem to change every year. And yes, I know I've bitched about that before on this blog.

Todd & Maria and their friends came out tonight. Also, Brad Whitford (from Aerosmith) and his lovely wife Kim came to the show. I've met Brad before, and I've even had dinner with him a few times, but to date I've never met Kim. She was very sweet.

My buddy Robert Kearns called me today. I worked for his band Cry of Love for 7 years back in the 90's. Robert plays bass in Lynyrd Skynyrd these days and the band was looking for a place to rehearse in Raleigh tomorrow, which is a day off for them before their upcoming Friday night show there.

I got them hooked up with a local spot, and got a friend back home hooked up for tickets to the Skynyrd/Kid Rock show in the process. Quid pro quo, ya know?

I am so lucky. Some days, my life is anything but boring…

Travel Day to Dallas

2009-07-20T23:39:00.001-04:00

We split from the gig last night as soon as we could. I got in bed at the hotel about 2:45 or so. Up this morning at 6:30 to start the day. I'm a tired puppy…

Flying from the John Wayne Airport in Santa Cruz, where I found the Gibson Guitar Lounge. Stuck my head in to have a look, and found a bunch of our crew in there drinking. At 9am, hahaha…

View from my seat:

On the ground and at the Dallas hotel by 4:30. Worked a bit, then grabbed a shower and headed downstairs. My friends Todd & Maria picked me up and took me to dinner at The Angry Dog. Check it HERE.

Always good to see some ex-Raleigh folks during my travels. Love you guys, thanks for always having smiling faces and good times waiting for me in Dallas…

Show Day in Irvine, CA

2009-07-19T23:01:00.000-04:00

Whoa! Those 3 hours of sleep flew by way too fast. Really could have done with a couple more, but that's rock & roll. If you're a person who requires more than 5 or 6 hours of sleep per night, being a roadie is probably the worst career decision you could ever make. Overnight on back-to-back shows, I typically get in my bunk on the bus around 2:30 or 2:45 and up again by 6:45 or 7:000. It'll wear you down, for sure. Lucky for me, I don't sleep very much on the bus.

Not much to report - had a few visitors today, business management folks, travel agents, etc. People who make a lot of things happen on rock tours from behind the scenes. It's always nice to meet them and put a face with voice on the phone or the name on the email.

Far as I could tell, tonight's show was light on celebrities, too. Guess they don't go out much on Sunday nights. Only actress I saw was Kate Bosworth, who is really cute…

Show Day in Carson, CA

2009-07-18T23:10:00.000-04:00

Big show in Carson, CA tonight, an L.A. suburb near Compton. The Home Depot is a multi-use facility, with a couple of different venues. Our show is in the soccer stadium, where tonight's sold-out crowd was over 27,000 strong.

The gig, early in the day:

And after the show:

Los Angeles shows are always a pain in the butt, as are New York shows and shows in whatever town your artist calls home – in this case, London, where we have 2 shows in September.

Quite a few celebs on the guest list tonight, among them:

Tom Cruise (with a security detail, lol…)
Jake Gyllenhaal
Scarlett Johansson
Olivia Newton-John
Molly Sims
Kate Bosworth

There were a few more, but those are the ones whose names I recognized.

After load-out, we finally rolled away from the gig a bit after 2am, bound for the Hilton Hotel in Irvine. We would normally drive to the next gig and wake up onsite, but after the buses dump us out at the hotel, they're hauling ass to Dallas in order to be there Tuesday morning to take us to that day's gig. Because of the long haul (1450 miles) and only one day off to make it, we're all flying to the Big D on Monday morning. Much better that than 22-24 hours trapped on the bus.

Made it to the hotel a few minutes after 3, finally got in bed at 3:30. Looks like 3 hours of sleep is as good as tonight's gonna get.

Zzzzzzzzzz.

Day Off in Long Beach

2009-07-17T23:30:00.003-04:00

Pulled up to the hotel around 5am this morning. I was the only person still awake when we got there. Grabbed all my crap and headed up to my room, which was…

HOT! (imagine that)

I cranked up the AC and putzed around for a bit. Spent 10 minutes de-constructing, then re-constructing the "Heavenly Bed." I fucking HATE those beds. If you jump straight into it, you're under not one, but two sheets, plus a heavy comforter, plus a REALLY HEAVY comforter that must be Artic-rated. I swear to you, the room temperature would have to be 30 degrees for me to be under all that crap.

So I strip everything off the bed, which isn't as tidy of a process as it sounds, because everything is tucked high and tight. Then I put one sheet back on and I was done.

Sorry, those beds are not heavenly; to me, they're the very definition of hell.

As the clock neared 6:30am, I finally laid down and passed right out. Woke up at 9:15 and stared at the computer for the next umpteen hours. Actually got a lot of work done, so that was cool.

Called a couple of guys about dinner, but no one seemed interested in going. Pfft! I used the uber-cool iPhone app called UrbanSpoon to find a killer restaurant about 5 blocks away called King's Fish House.

Walked over there, got a seat at the bar and had no sooner ordered a Bud, when my phone rang and a few folks said they were on their way to join me. Twenty minutes later, our two riggers, Gabe and Chuck, showed up with dressing room coordinator Tiffany in tow. We all sat at the bar and had a great meal. The menu there is insane:Click the photo to enlarge it, or read the online menu HERE.

Tiffany munching down on my Mac & Cheese:

Our Production Manager Fin showed up and had a few beers with us before we all waddled back to the hotel for the night.

Oh, yeah, I got new business cards the other day. Here's what they look like:I am officially a nerd now - I have a business card...

Show Day in San Diego

2009-07-16T23:10:00.002-04:00

Our show today was at the Cricket Wireless Amphitheatre, previously known (for many years) as the Coors Amphitheatre. Like every other shed in America, these places seem to change names every year or so.

Nice venue, good catering, too. The best part was that, instead of ordering aftershow food from a restaurant, Marguerite ordered a taco truck, which came and set up in the parking lot by the buses after the show. I had a veggie soft taco that was amazing, right off the grill.

Only had a 115-mile drive tonight to our hotel in Long Beach, so I stayed up. That'll probably turn out to be a mistake…

Strange and thought-provoking photo of the day:I mean, has it really come to this???

Day Off in San Diego

2009-07-15T23:35:00.009-04:00

We're staying at the W Hotel in downtown San Diego today. W's are nice, upscale, kinda foofy hotels. Sorta like Monaco's and other Kimpton properties. I've got a pretty cool room. Nice seating area in the windowsill, complete with a lap desk:

A wall-mounted wine rack:

And even a blackboard, which of course the first thing I drew upon was a big ol' peepee. (Why is it that men always act like they're 12 years old?) Post-peepee, it was a bit more acceptable looking:

Took an awesome run down by the waterfront. Ran a couple of miles, then walked several more. Lots of great sites to see along the way.

On the way back to the hotel, I wandered a little bit around the downtown area. Accidentally stumbled across the House of Blues, where the billboard informed me that the Arc Angels were playing tonight. A couple of minutes later, after speaking with the club's stage manager Dave, I was hooked up for the show.

Back to the hotel where I worked another couple of hours, then I headed out to the Gaslight District, where I had dinner at the Rockin' Baja Coastal Cantina. I had an appetizer, the Tequila Lime Shrimp starter, along with an order of guacamole and chips. The best part of the meal was the sauce that came with the shrimp – it was made with butter, olive oil, garlic, cilantro, red pepper, lime juice and tequila. It was served with garlic bread for sopping up the juices. Yummy!

Won't soon forget this place:

Something funny about the crew on this tour - seems like none of them really likes music, they're just out here working for a living. Me, I got into this business because of my deep-seated, lifelong obsession with music. Nearly everything in my life revolves around music in one way or another and it's the one thing I could never give up. For the life of me, I can't understand or relate to people who aren't equally obsessed.

I asked a bunch of folks if they'd like to go see the Arc Angels and – surprise, surprise – no one had ever heard of them. Uh, let's see, Doyle Bramhall has played in Eric Clapton's touring band for how many years now? And he plays in Roger Water's touring band, too? Yep!

And how 'bout Charlie Sexton? The guy's been a guitar legend since he was a 16-year-old kid out of Austin who had a record deal with MCA Records. He plays in Bob Dylan's band, for chrissakes!

But wait, there's more – the Arc Angels rhythm section is Tommy Shannon and Chris Layton, the same guys who played with Stevie Ray Vaughn! How people can be unaware of this (or worse, uninterested) is completely beyond me.

The other day, during some conversation, a fellow crew person said to me, "You're really into music, aren't you, Bob?" Well, duh…

So anyway, I went alone to the Arc Angels.

The folks who hooked me up were kind enough to have the club stuff a bunch of free drink tickets in the ticket envelope I picked up at the box office. Nice, that guarantees me a good time and a sore head tomorrow, hahaha.

I will state for the record right here and right now, that with the possible, possible exception of Jeff Beck, I have never seen a finer guitar player than Doyle Bramhall II. And trust me, I've seen a LOT of guitar players.

Sorry about the quality of the following shots – they were all taken on my iPhone because I didn't feel like carrying my digital camera with me tonight.

Now get off your ass and order that first Arc Angels record from 1992. You can buy it for $7.97 from Amazon.com via this link right HERE.

Show Day in Marysville, CA

2009-07-14T23:18:00.002-04:00

Thought For The Day:

I was looking at a one-dollar bill just now. Have you ever wondered if the one-dollar bills in your pocket were ever in a stripper's butt crack?

Moving on now…

Show today in Marysville, CA. We're talking middle-of-nowheresville, about 40 miles from Sacramento. I've been here 5 or 6 times and for the life of me, I can't figure out how they couldn't find some land for sale a little closer to town. Forty miles? Really?

I woke up at 6am, waaay early for our 9am load-in. No venue people around at that time, although Jill, the local caterer, and her staff were going to town in the kitchen area. Jill owns the catering company and she's a total sweetie. Easy on the eyes, too. She did three of my "So You Think You Can Dance" shows here in California last year, which is where I met her.

I really wanted to grab a shower, but all the dressing rooms were locked. Lucked out when I found a men's room near catering that was open AND had a shower. Score!

The temperature eventually reached 103 degrees around 3pm. Pretty brutal, but my butt was sitting in a 70 degree office all day, listening to music and getting it done!

My nephew and his wife came to the show tonight. They arrived 15 minutes into the band's set though, by which time I was too busy to go see them and say hello. Hope they had a good time…

On the bus and in my bunk around 2:30am. Day off in San Diego tomorrow!

Oh, yeah, got this today and I think it's funny...You may need to click on the image to enlarge it.

Show Day in Mountain View, CA

2009-07-13T23:10:00.004-04:00

Today was our San Francisco show. The shed here is actually 38 miles south of the city, down in Mountain View. Turns out that there are two towns in California called Mountain View, too. Never knew that, but came across it while MapQuesting the gig info.

Anyway, the show was at Shoreline Amphitheatre. I've been here a LOT, going back to the early/mid 90's. I like this gig.

When we first arrived, I had time to kill. So I played the electronic basketball game out in the catering area. I sucked. Only scored a 55 the first go-round, and a 52 on the second. Set Carpenter Russell came by and smoked my ass, scoring 239 points. I walked away with my tail tucked between my legs.

Went back over 20 minutes later. You know, competitive nature and all. Sure, Russell's maybe 24 years old, but it's only putting a ball through a hoop, ya know? 330 points later, I was the KING!

Never could top that score, although I tried. Even got the blister to show for it. Never heard that anyone else beat it today, either.

This is pretty cool. It was hanging on the wall in the office that Julie and I shared today. OK, on the bathroom wall in our office. It's all tickets and sticky passes. Still, I like it:Click photo to enlarge.

Had some interesting folks on the guest list tonight. Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple) and Jonathan Ive (designer of the iPod) came to the show. Jobs, of course, has recently had a liver transplant. Although immediately recognizable as Captain Universe of the Geek World, the dude was a bit weak and sickly-looking. Very gaunt, and he weighed 120 pounds at best.

During the show, he was seated in the VIP balcony over stage left, as was Sherry Willey (my ex), along with her husband Ed (great guy!) and a friend of Ed's (Travis) with his girlfriend Christina.

Sherry and her crowd wanted to split just as the second encore was starting, so I walked them up the backstage hill and out to the VIP parking area. G'nights all around and I went back in to finish my work for the night.

On the bus and in my bunk around 2:15 or so…

Day Off in Palo Alto

2009-07-12T23:19:00.006-04:00

Got in my bunk last night about 3:30am. Woke up at 7, but couldn't go back to sleep. Got up about 20 minutes later and went down front to sit with Charlie, my driver.

Saw a deer jump across the road a couple of hours later. Charlie said he saw 6 – 8 of 'em overnight. Pretty much had the bus to ourselves until a couple of people woke up around 11:30.

We eventually stopped for a Code Brown - some folks on the other buses needed to poo. All 4 buses pulled over at a little store out in the middle of nowhere. Once you stop the buses like this, everyone sorta wakes up, and then EVERYBODY wants to go poo. The store wasn't very big, and the men's room only had one toilet – that's what someone told me, I didn't go in it – so we wound up being there for 40 minutes. Too bad the poo people couldn't wait for a multi-toilet truckstop out on the 101.

As all roadies do when the bus has pulled in somewhere, I wandered the aisles of the store, doing my best Retail Zombie routine. I stumbled across some Mexican Coca-Cola in the cooler and bought one. I normally don't drink soda pop, but the Mexican Cokes don't have high-fructose corn syrup in them. I won't drink anything with that crap in it. So now that I had a bottle of Coke, I had to buy some salted peanuts to dump in it. That kinda freaked out some of the folks on my bus, which I got a kick out of.

Sitting on the bus drinking my Coke with peanuts in it, I grabbed the camera again. Had to get a shot of this view. Note the mileage sign – it's 40 miles to Weed, CA…Click on the photo to enlarge it.

The view heading to Weed, CA:

Saw a few billboards for a store in Weed that sold t-shirts that said "I (heart) Weed." Ha-ha!!!

Saw this badass truck a little later. In the second photo, check out the 3-D naked girls mounted on the mudflaps.

I should have gotten a shot of the cab of the truck, but I didn't. It was chopped and lowered and looked really cool.

We finally got to the hotel at 6:15. Dang, that ride took forever. I dashed to my room, showered and ran back downstairs just in time to be picked up by Sherry (my ex) and Ed (her husband). They took me to dinner at a place called Nola in downtown Palo Alto, which was only a few blocks away. The food was good, the company was better.

They dropped me off back at the hotel just after 10pm and I putzed around the room for another 90 minutes before going to bed…

Show Day at The Gorge

2009-07-11T23:16:00.006-04:00

Today's show is at The Gorge Amphitheatre in (yep, really) George, Washington. Beautiful location, but the facility itself could use a little updating. The offices are kinda shabby, dressing rooms, too. There were several dead mice found in the catering area this morning. Later in the day, one of our crew guys showed me a dead baby rattlesnake someone had put in an extra-large drink cup. I heard that someone had also killed a grown rattler near my office trailer. One thing it wasn't today, though, was boring.

The view outside my office door. That's my bus on the left:

Another view:

It got pretty hot here today, about 95 degrees. The heat finally broke around 7pm, not a minute too soon. The sundown was pretty awesome, but these photos don't really do it justice:

My Live Nation tour rep, Julie Matway:

Me at sundown:

The crowd before the band went on:

Tiffany Henry, the band's Wardrobe and Dressing Room Coodinator:

Settlement was quick and easy tonight – we were wrapped up and done by 10:30 – as it should be. But load-out here is a pain in the ass, so the buses didn't roll until 3am. That kinda bites, because we have an 825-mile drive to do to get to Palo Alto, where we have a day (OK, a half-day) off tomorrow.

I crawled off to my bunk about 3:30am…

Show Day in Portland

2009-07-10T01:22:00.000-04:00

Whoa! Didn't sleep too well last night, spent most of it tossing and turning. Got up at 4:45 to start my day. Today's show, although it's in the "Portland" market area, is about 30 minutes away in Ridgefield, WA.

I haven't had a show in nearly three weeks, and it felt like I'd completely lost my road groove. You ever get that feeling that everything's going by in slow-motion and it just doesn't feel 100% right? That's how today was. To complicate matters, the show settlement tonight took forever. I think we finished around 12:45am, about two-and-a-half hours later than it should have been.

When I finally got into my bunk about 2am, I was completely wiped out…

Hey, you! Get back to work!

2009-07-09T22:18:00.000-04:00

OK, OK, I'm finally going back on the road. I've been home since June 22nd and I swear, I've been busier at home than I was on the road for last six weeks. I finally wrapped the last of the hotel details on Monday, finished off the remaining cash reports and FedEx'ed the lot of it to London and LA on Tuesday. At 5:35pm Tuesday, I walked out of the FedEx office and went straight to get a cold beer!

One thing I've meaning to write about was my recent addiction to Facebook. Being honest, it's part of the reason I haven't been blogging much lately. Pretty much went cold turkey on it Monday morning. I was pretty good for a few days, but it's hard not to spend 5 or 10 minutes on it every day. It's like crack or Starbucks, you just crave it and crave it…

So anyway, I flew to Portland, OR, today. Having attended a going away dinner last night on the Ale House Deck that I stayed at waaaay too late, I didn't really feel my best when I got up at 7am this morning. I still had a million things to get done before I could leave and wasn't moving too quickly.

Had a 1:00pm cab scheduled to take me to the airport and flew first to Dallas, then on to Portland on American Airlines. First Class seat on both legs, schweet! The flight out of Dallas was delayed by a little over an hour, and we finally got on the ground in Portland at about 9:15. Made the hotel by 10 and went pretty much straight to bed. Gonna be an early and long day tomorrow…

Bad Company

2009-06-23T23:59:00.000-04:00

Hit the ground running this morning. I have a lot of work to do, wrapping up the last tour leg. Ran a couple of errands for groceries and such, but the day was mostly spent chained to my dining room table, of which I've now made a gigantic mess! It will only get worse for the next week or so, until I'm caught up to date and the last FedEx packages have been sent to LA and London.

Met one of my childhood guitar heroes tonight – Mick Ralphs, who played in Mott the Hoople until he quit the band to join forces with Paul Rodgers and form Bad Company. Bad Co. played Walnut Creek tonight and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Three original members (Mick, Paul, drummer Simon Kirke), some bass player I didn't know (replacing the late Boz Burrell), and the band was supplemented by Howard Leese (orig. guitarist for Heart) on guitar.

The show was awesome. You would never know that Paul Rodgers was 59 years old – his voice was strong and dead on. Paige went with me and I think she liked it as much as I did. Here's the setlist from the show tonight (courtesy of my buddy Foxy, the band's Tour Manager):

Fuckin' crowd pissed me off. They didn't make enough noise for the band to come back for a second encore, which would have started with "Deal With The Preacher" which is my favorite Bad Co. song.

So, anyway, when we first got to the venue, I parked backstage (thanks Wilson and Shaw) and went to see my friend Cindy, who was doing catering for the gig. We sat and had a bite with her, and Mick Ralphs was sitting a couple of tables away from us with a couple of folks. About 20 minutes later, just before he was gonna leave the room, I walked over and said hello. He was a complete gentleman, and when I told him I planned to attend all five of the Mott the Hoople shows in London during October, he laughed. Not being one to be a pest in situations like this, I thanked him for his time and split. Those five minutes went by way too quickly, but I treasured them.

For sure, that was the highlight of my year so far…

Heading Home

2009-06-22T11:54:00.000-04:00

Noon flight from Vancouver to Toronto. Nice seat, cranky asshat in the seat next to me, though. Forgettable flight, as they all should be. I watched a movie (Bourne Identity) on my iPod, listened to some tunes, read a magazine, and before you know it, we'd landed. Even after going through U.S. Customs and Immigrations (in Toronto? Huh?), I still had an hour-plus to kill, so I went and grabbed a bite to eat. The flight to RDU was on a Canada Air Regional Jet, much smaller, but a had a row (of 2 seats) to myself.

On the ground in Raleigh by about 10:30pm. Cab to the house and then there I sat, wide awake until 3am…

Day Off in Calgary

2009-06-16T23:21:00.003-04:00

Crawled into my bunk last night around 2:30am, a few minutes after we pulled away from the venue in Winnipeg. Woke up this morning around 8:00, but having changed time zones yet again, it was really 7am in Alberta.

Whenever I'm in Alberta, I can't help but think of my favorite Neil Young song, "Four Strong Winds." Neil performs it, but it was written by a guy named Ian Tyson. Partial lyrics:

"Think I'll go out to Alberta,
Weather's good there in the fall.
I got some friends that I could go to working for.
Still I wish you'd change your mind,
If I ask you one more time.
But we've been through this a hundred times or more.

Four strong winds that blow lonely,
Seven seas that run high.
All those things that don't change, come what may.
If the good times are all gone,
Then I'm bound for movin' on.
I'll look for you if I'm ever back this way."

Beautiful song, and it's from my all-time favorite Neil Young album, "Comes A Time," from 1978. I have listened to that record hundreds of times in my rocking chair on my front porch. And I'll listen to it many more…

Finally made it to the hotel around 3pm. Up to my room and get some work done for a bit, then shower and head out for dinner. I walked around for awhile, stopping and reading menus at places I passed along the way, but wound up eating back at the pub attached to the hotel. The entrees sounded good, and the appetizers sounded even better. I got the Stilton Cheese Dip, which was served in a pumpernickel bread bowl with Granny Smith apple slices and bagel crisps. Damn good, damn fine.

Also got an order of Blarney chips, which were really nachos without the tortilla chips. In their place, the base was made of waffle fries. Had the usual toppings – cheese, onions, jalapeno pepper slices.

I was drinking some lager from the Netherlands that the bartender recommended. All I remember is that the name started with a "D." Tasty stuff it was, indeed.

Made it up to my room by 9:30 and in bed by 11:30…

Show Day in Winnipeg

2009-06-15T23:34:00.000-04:00

OK, I'm a dummy. I left my camera charger at home. By being extremely frugal with it, I managed to squeeze four weeks use out of the battery, but it finally died in New Orleans last week. I'm too cheap to buy another one, especially since I’m flying home next Monday, the 22nd.

So don't expect to see any pictures here this week…

Day Off in Winnipeg, Manitoba

2009-06-14T23:29:00.000-04:00

Made it to the border around 10:30 this morning. Took the better part of two hours to get all five buses of personnel through Immigrations. On any rock tour, there are always a couple of guys with (minor) criminal records that require thorough examination by the Immigrations folks.

Got away clean and made it to the hotel by sometime around 1 or 1:15pm. We're staying at the Radisson in central downtown Winnipeg. Last time I was here, I stayed at the Fairmont, about 5 blocks away. There's a cool minor-league baseball park nearby, too. I went to a game there one year.

As luck would have it, we're here on Sunday, which is the night that all the classic car aficionados cruise the downtown area, specifically Portage Avenue, the main drag, where our hotel is located.

Before I even went to dinner, I saw nothing less than 30 cars I'd love to own. I'm talking pristine-condition pieces from the 60's and 70's.

I went to Hy's Steak Loft for dinner, probably the best steak house in Winnipeg. Had a great shrimp cocktail appetizer and a blackened tuna steak for my entrée. Service couldn't have been better, but maybe that's because I had the entire bar area to myself.

Spoke to the sommelier for about 20 minutes about Canadian wines. He was very helpful and educational. One of the waitresses overheard our conversation and I wound up talking to her for another 15 or 20 minutes about Charlotte, of all things. She had friends in Huntersville, NC, (just north of Charlotte) and knew plenty of North Carolina.

After dinner, I hit my hotel bar for a beer and went to stand outside to watch all the vintage cars go by. Think I'm gonna have to buy another convertible at some point…

Travel Day to Des Moines

2009-06-11T23:30:00.000-04:00

Long, crappy day stuck on the bus. We pulled away from the venue in San Antonio last night a few minutes before 2am. I woke up around 8am, got dressed, and headed up front to hang out with Charlie.

And that's how it was, all day long…

We finally pulled up to the Renaissance Savery Hotel in downtown Des Moines at 6:45pm. Seventeen hours trapped on a 45-foot submarine. I couldn't get to my room and into the shower fast enough. As I was showering, I realized I hadn't had enough water to drink all day and was feeling pretty dehydrated, to the point of having a low-grade headache. Damn sure didn't feel like going out on a restaurant hunt, so I checked the room service menu, decided it looked more than sufficient, and headed down to the lobby bar.

Had a really good glass of Penfold's Cabernet, and ordered a shrimp cocktail that was terrific. The next appetizer I got, though, was the bomb. It was a country fried tuna dish (I know – weird, right?). They took a tuna steak, coated it with Japanese panko (bread crumbs), and flash fried it. The tuna was rare, but warm, the panko coating light and tasty. It was served with a ginger-soy sauce and wasabi mayonnaise. Yummy!

I was eventually joined by Piers (the band's chef), Minh (carpenter), Marguerite (production coordinator) and Tiffany (wardrobe). A glass or two of wine later, I headed up to my room.

On a bum note, today marked the first day off city that I didn't go running. After 17 hours trapped on the bus, I just didn't feel like it. No guilt, no excuses, just wasn't gonna do it.

Finally got in bed around 11:30…

Second Day Off in New Orleans

2009-06-08T23:59:00.001-04:00

After staying up pretty late last night, I slept in today (yeah, right!) getting up at the ungodly hour of 8:30. WTF! Maybe tonight will be the night I get some sleep…

Between my running/walking at the gym yesterday and walking all over the French Quarter last night, my legs were toasted today. I wound up going down to the hotel gym again and walking 3 miles just to loosen them up. Within an hour, though, my left knee was totally tightening up again.

Had lunch at Mother's again today, this time alone. Jessica was working today - boo.

Here's the world's best sammich – a Mother's Oyster Po' Boy, along with an ice-cold Dixie beer, fries and a bottle of Crystal Hot Sauce. The only way to possibly improve this meal would be to use Texas Pete Hot Sauce instead, but heck, I'm in Louisiana, so I don't mind using the local stuff. But no way in hell would I defile this sandwich with that nasty Tabasco – it has more heat than flavor, Texas Pete has more flavor than heat. Crystal is close enough to Pete that I'll use it.

The Po' Boy Mecca:

Sat in my room most of the afternoon, even squeezed in a 45-minute nap. Sure needed that.

Eventually wandered over to Acme Oyster House for dinner. I recently saw it featured on the Travel Channel and realized I'd never eaten there in all the times I've been to New Orleans. It was pretty rocking. My favorite dish there was the Chargrilled Oysters. That's oysters grilled on an open flame and topped with seasoned butter and grated Romano cheese. They're served with small toasted pieces of French bread, which you can dip into all the goo. The goo being oyster juice, butter and melted cheese. Good stuff!

I wasn't very hungry after that, but I ordered a PeaceMaker, anyway. That's a Po'Boy sammich that comes with fried oysters on one half and fried shrimp on the other. It was OK, but Mother's sammiches are better.

After dinner, I wandered around on Bourbon Street looking for a good band to watch. Found a couple of them. One had a bad-ass guitarist who was a blast to watch. He was a helluva player. They were a cover band, but played tunes I like (uh, that pretty much means the music from the 70's) and this kid would deconstruct all the guitar riffs and solos and just OWN them. They did everything from James Brown to the Stones to Van Halen and were great!

The other band I really liked was playing at Fat Catz. Eight-piece, all bruthas, and they rocked like mofo's. Their guitarist was a complete bad-ass, too. The 3-piece horn section was killin' it. These guys played a little bit of every style, too. Funk to pop to soul to straight up rock. When they did Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer," the dance floor quickly filled.

I watched them for probably the better part of an hour before heading out. Ran into 5 of our truck drivers on Bourbon Street as I was moseying back to the hotel. Hung out with them for a few minutes, but I was done for the evening…

Day Off in New Orleans

2009-06-07T23:20:00.000-04:00

It wasn't really a good week for blogging – I had a pretty busy week, with shows on Monday & Tuesday, then our only triple night run of the tour on Thursday, Friday & Saturday.

Today, we start 2 days off in New Orleans.

I sat up with the gang on the bus pretty late last night. I was in the mood for a glass of wine, and wound up having a couple of them. Finally crawled into my bunk just before 4:30am and managed to sleep until around 8:20 this morning.

Got up and went up front to hang out with driver Charlie. He's a hoot and makes me laugh with his stories. We pulled up to the hotel shortly after noon.

We're staying at a great hotel called the Windsor Court Hotel. I have a killer room, with a great view…

Blazed to the room to change and then headed (where else?) to the gym to run. Managed a couple of miles and walked another 4 or so.

At one point during the afternoon, I had to go to the lobby for something and there was an honest-to-god string quartet playing classical music in the lobby. I stood and watched them for a few minutes and really enjoyed it.

As soon as I was done with that, I walked around the corner to Mother's to get an Oyster Po'Boy. I think Mother's has the best Po'Boys in New Orleans. If you think differently, let me know. I'll be happy to try another place, but I bet they don't measure up.

While standing in line to place my order, the cute brunette in front of me struck up a conversation, which led to her inviting me to share her table – turned out we were both there dining alone. Her name was Jessica, she was 45, from DC, and cute as hell. She was in town for business and staying at the Intercontinental, a few blocks over. We sat there for an hour eating and chatting, which reminds me of a t-shirt I once owned. It had a picture of Albert Einstein on it and said "Sit on a hot stove for a minute and it feels like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour and it feels like a minute." True dat, Albert!

Anyway, after lunch, I wound up back in my room for a couple more hours, reading and working on the computer. Split just before 8 to go meet Jessica for dinner and drinks…

Show Day in Nashville

2009-06-06T23:45:00.001-04:00

The show tonight completed the only three-shows-in-a-row run we have during the tour. I'm glad to have it out of the way.

It was also the first indoor show. We've been doing all outdoor shows until today. I'd rather do buildings, myself. The office rooms and bathrooms are better.

I was standing just outside my office door about 8pm tonight, and looked up to see Faith Hill walking down the hallway (en route to the band's guest suite/friends & family room). She looked right at me, and SMILED REAL BIG. I smiled back, she said "Hi." I melted into the floor. She is one fine looking woman. She had a few other folks with her, including her husband, Tim McGraw. Dang…

Roadie friends Angela and Jessica came out to visit tonight. They both live here in Nashvegas. My buddy Lance (from Tour Supply) and his lovely (and very pregnant) wife Tara also came to the show and to hang out.

We've got the next two days off in New Orleans. A bunch of people are talking about taking a swamp tour, in a boat of course. Not sure I'm interested in that. I've seen plenty of critters in my life. Besides, if I see a snake, I'm likely to beat that sucker to death…

Day Off in Cincinnati

2009-06-03T23:56:00.000-04:00

We're staying at the Downtown Hilton (on 5th St.), right in the middle of everything fun to do in Cincinnati (that I know of). I got into my room around 2pm, changed, and went downstairs to the gym to run. Made it about 1.4 miles when a searing pain shot through my left knee. No idea what caused it, but after several attempts to continue the run, I gave up and got on a stationary bike. I had forgotten what a good workout you can get on a bike, and my knee didn't hurt at all from riding it. I had a mondo-ass river of sweat pouring off of me by the time I was done. It was fun!

Later in the afternoon, I dragged a few of the crew guys to my fave Cinci watering hole, the Cadillac Ranch. There were 5 or 6 of us, and we stayed there for a few hours.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped and listened to a Brazilian pop band playing outside at some sort of fund-raiser. They were really good. I wanted to hear "The Girl From Ipanema," but they never got around to playing it. (Someone later told me they played it right after I left – damn!) As we were leaving, we ran into another group of folks who were on their way to Rock Bottom Brewery. I jumped in with that crowd for a bit. They were all eating, but I just had a couple of beers.

I was back in my room by 11…

Day Off in Buffalo, NY

2009-05-31T23:28:00.001-04:00

Woke up at 6am this morning, just a few minutes after Charlie had parked in front of the hotel. He'd already gone in and picked up all of our room keys and was spreading them out on the table in the front lounge when I came out of the bunk area. Everyone else was still sound asleep.

I grabbed my bags and headed up to my room. Got changed and headed down to the hotel gym. My legs were still in pretty rough shape and I wasn’t sure I could run, but I was damn sure gonna try.

Only managed a couple of miles before I had to pack it in. Guess I really needed that extra day of rest between runs. Can't wait for Wednesday to get here. That'll be our next day off, spent in Cincinnati. Anyway, after the run, I walked around the downtown area for a bit. It was a brisk 49 or 50 degrees, and I was soaked with sweat and only wearing a t-shirt and shorts, so I walked at a pretty good pace to stay warm.

After that, I putzed around the room, and spent some time on the computer. Turned the TV on to watch the race around 1:30, only to discover that the FOX channel had no audio. The other 95 channels on the set were just fine, no problems at all, but FOX's audio was o-u-t. Bummer.

Around 5, I headed down to the bar to wait for Denise to come pick me up. Denise is my buddy Blaine's girlfriend, and she lives here in Buffalo. Our new carpenter Minh was hanging out, and after Denise got there, we jumped in her car and headed over to Frank & Teressa's Anchor Bar, where Buffalo Wings were invented back in 1964.

Live Nation Julie was already out walking around in that neighborhood, so when I called her, she was only a few minutes away and would meet us there. When we got there, we discovered 2 other groups of crew folks already settled in, one in the dining room, the other at the bar. We grabbed a bunch of stools at the bar and chowed down. Not being a wing eater, I had the fish and chips, but made sure to put plenty of their famous Suicide Sauce on it.

After dinner, Julie, Minh and I jumped in with Denise and she gave us a proper tour of some of the better parts of Buffalo. Saw a lot of great neighborhoods and a few places I'd like to visit next time I have a day off here.

Back in my room by about 10…

Show Day in Pittsburgh

2009-05-30T23:46:00.002-04:00

As much as I enjoyed having three days off in the same location, I was quite happy to go back to work this morning.

I wish I could say the same about my legs. I seriously torched them yesterday and I'm paying for it today. I spent the entire day walking around like I was crippled.

One of the few things I'm not digging about getting older is my diminished capacity for running. It's taking me (seemingly) forever to increase my distance. Shit, I used to roll out of bed and do a 6.7 mile run 3 days a week and a no-limit fun run on Saturday that could easily stretch into 10 or more miles.

Now I'm all excited about knocking out 3 miles and it cripples me the next day. But I'm not giving up – all it takes is time.

One thing I have always enjoyed doing on tour is going to a coin laundromat on the occasional day off to do my own laundry. I find that little routine to be strangely relaxing and comforting. But going into this tour with an attitude toward staying healthier, I am choosing to send my laundry out to the fluff n' fold every so often (as most crew people do), thereby removing one of my oft-used excuses for not exercising on days off.

The result – I have run in all 6 cities that we've had a day off in since the tour began, and I have no intention of stopping. I am completely happy about that!

Got an interesting phone call during the show tonight. I have a 16-day break coming up in a few weeks and one of my regular artists is planning a 5-show trip to South Africa, which would fit perfectly into my schedule. But, it would leave me with only one night off at home on either side of the trip, thereby negating my break.

So…go to South Africa (and Nigeria) for the first time ever, or stay home and relax? Guess I'll need to sleep on this one for a day or two. I really, really love my time at home, but I just had six months off, so I don't have much of an excuse for not going…

Third And Final Day Off in Pittsburgh

2009-05-29T22:39:00.002-04:00

Up at 6am, knocked out the inbox and browsed the paper. Went down to the hotel gym and managed to run 3 miles. I'm pretty sure it's been at least 3 years since I ran that far. I'll pay for it tomorrow, but I was lovin' it when I was doin' it.

Walked down the street to the original Primanti Brothers location for lunch. PB's is a Pittsburgh institution. You may have seen it featured on any one of several TV shows, such as "Man vs. Food" or "Sandwich Paradise" on the Travel Channel. Their thing is to put the coleslaw and french fries ON the sandwich, not on the side. As weird as that sounds, it's unbelievably good. You can check out their website HERE.

A bunch of tour peeps went golfing this afternoon, and another bunch went to the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game tonight. Not being interested in doing either of those, I trekked back down to the Strip district around 6pm. Wound up sitting outside at Roland's Seafood Grill, a really cool place that's been around since 1959. If there was a Roland's was back home in Raleigh, I'd be a regular. It's that good.

Sat at a table outside (on the sidewalk) for a couple of hours, just sipping beers and trying to decide what to have for dinner. Settled on a six-piece shrimp cocktail (they were HUGE) and a lobster roll for dinner. I normally wouldn't order a lobster roll except in Maine or Maryland, but my waiter Justin said it was worthy. Awesome bread (from Mancini's), garlic, butter and a truckload of lobster meat. Killer meal!

You can check out Roland's Seafood Grill HERE. And you can bet I'll be back the next time I have a day off in Pittsburgh. Same goes for Primanti Brothers, too!

On the way back to the hotel, I stopped at Crystal, a combo Lebanese restaurant/dive bar (WTF!!!) that I had passed this afternoon. Turns out it's been featured on the Food Network's "Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives." Bartender was cute as hell, and the Buds were ice-cold. Too bad I couldn't stick around for a few more – gotta get up super early tomorrow morning because bus call is at 7am.

You can check out Crystal HERE.

Back in the room by 10 and in bed around 11…

Second Day Off in Pittsburgh

2009-05-28T23:37:00.000-04:00

Pretty much never left my room today, except to walk to Bruegger's Bagels to grab a sandwich for lunch.

Tonight, Live Nation treated the entire crew to a very nice dinner around the corner at a restaurant called the Sonoma Grill. About 40 or so people showed up. Good food, good times…

Surprise! An Extra Day Off!

2009-05-27T23:35:00.000-04:00

The band's singer has a sore throat and a bad cold, so tonight's show in Saratoga Springs has been postponed for two months. So, after last night's load-out in Philadelphia, we headed for Pittsburgh, where we already had two days off scheduled. Now, it's gonna be three. No complaints here.

We're staying at the Westin Convention Center, about 6 blocks walk from The Strip, the cool downtown area with a bunch of killer bars and restaurants. Also, located in the hotel lobby, is the Original Fish House, a killer seafood place. I've probably eaten there 10 or 11 times over the years, because whenever there's a day off in the 'Burgh, it's usually at this hotel.

Met up with Julie and Marguerite for dinner tonight in the O.F.H. It was killuh as always…