Roadie Blog: 2005-09-04

Detroit - Day Off

Saturday, September 10, 2005

Spend most of the day on the bus driving to Detroit. Get in about 3pm and go to the room. We have a crew dinner scheduled for 7pm. Shower, read, relax till 7, then we load up all the buses and drive to a marina restaurant called Sinbad's. Since it's Saturday night he place is hopping, but they've reserved 4 big tables for us (we have about 35 people). Dinner is OK, average seafood, except for the calamari, which is excellent. Back to the hotel around 11pm and up to the room to watch "Coach Carter" on DVD, good film.

Hartford, CT - Show Day

Friday, September 09, 2005

Lobby call isn't till 11:45am, and I sleep till 11 then shower and off to the venue which is across the street. Have an uncontrollable urge to get back on the bus this morning, it's home now that we've spent 7 straight days on it. Spend all day inside the venue working, I've hurt my back over the last couple of days, but don't have time to get a massage, boo. Takes us a little longer to load out, since we have to integrate the 'B' rig back into the pack.

Gillette Stadium NFL Kickoff -Show Day

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Wake up in the parking lot of the stadium and ride my bike around the lot till we meet the guys for load in. Unlike the rehearsal day, we are not allowed to load-in/out of the gate near the stage, we must use the main backstage entrance, which is on the other side of the stadium (how inconvenient). After loading in and line checking, we do a runthrough then out to the bus to tailgate till showtime.

Our brilliant drum tech Kenny had the foresight to get a grill and some stuff to throw on it last night. We tailgate next to our bus and the other fans, we are amateurs compared to some of the people out here, who are cooking seafood stew, lobsters, etc. But to be thousands of miles from home, we do pretty good with brats, ribs and crab cakes from our truck driver Chili. A lot better than the catering at the gig for sure...

Back inside we do our one song in the endzone, on a stage beneath the scoreboard. Everything goes off without a hitch. We quickly clear the stage after the performance, but we won't be able to load out till after the game. Watch the pregame for the side of the stage then get invited to the band's skybox to watch the rest of the game. Lots of food in the skybox, but I'm too full from tailgating to eat anything :( Oakland plays a good game, but gets beat by the Pats by 10 points.

After the game comes the long push to load the truck. Takes us about an hour to loadout. Then it's back on the bus and a short ride to Hartford where we check in to the hotel at 4:30am. I end up staying awake till 6:30am reading.

Philadelphia - Show Day

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Wake up at the gig in Philly go in early and take care of some business online. Do my regular gig and after soundcheck ride my bike around the venue and through the Spectrum parking lots. There is a baseball game (in the park next door) tonight so traffic is extra heavy. Wait for my guests to arrive and they are all late due to traffic, they arrive at changeover and I spend a couple of minutes with them and then I have to do the show. After the show, go to the VIP room with guests and hang out until they kick us out. Then out to the bus for our drive back to Boston for the NFL show at Gillette Stadium tomorrow night.

Boston - NFL Rehearsal Day

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

In Foxboro, MA today for rehearsal for the NFL Kickoff pregame show we're playing on Thursday night. Load in at 2pm and as soon as we're done with soundcheck (around 9pm) we're off to Philly for a show tomorrow. I forgot to mention in the last few posts, but this week we've had an outbreak of the stomach flu which has affected two members of our bus, and two members of the band party. Yuk, hope I don't get it.

Ottawa, Canada - Show Day

Monday, September 05, 2005

Up around 9am and into the venue for a shower. Then spend a while updating the blog, look for pictures later...

Montreal, Canada - Show Day

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Up at 8:30am at the Canadian border, we all march into the Immigrations/Customs building. As they are going through the passports and making sure everyone is accounted for, they are searching everything in our buses. They eventually decide to bring in the dogs and go through everyone's bags and also have the dogs 'sniff' all of us too. They find no contraband, and I think they're a little disappointed. Since we have 3 crew buses we're not done until after 11:30am. And this is on a show day where we normally load in at 8am. Luckily our rigger and a couple of 'key' lighting personnel flew in last night to get a head start on the day.

Arrive at the venue around 1pm, sound isn't even in the air yet. Catering isn't set up and there's no internet as we are playing on an island. No use in me even attempting to go onstage and work, so I ride my bike around and take a few pictures (to be uploaded later). The island (park) that we are on is very beautiful, with gardens and sculptures. The gig is quite primitive with no buildings, everything is tents, trailers, and port-o-potties. The crowd will stand on a lovely dirt field (hope it doesn't rain).

Band comes in just as we are done with line check. Afterwards I'm off to the bus to nap, as I didn't get much sleep with our 3 hour border crossing.

Great show, Canadian fans are always enthusiastic. Short load out and off to bed, but I'm up around 2am as everyone else is going to bed (early for them) and I stay up until the merch guys roll in and we're off to Ottawa. I end up as the last guy awake and hit the bunk around 4am.