I guess I’m settling into the one update a month pattern. So much has happened in a month! The shows in France went really well, though just as all the bands were getting friendly it was over. We had a great time playing with Lift to Experience and Elbow. The show in Toulouse was supposed to be at Bikini, but due to an explosion in the town, the show was moved to another venue with some of the sound system (which survived) coming from the roofless club. Hopefully they will rebuild, it was a really nice club.
As we bid farewell to France, we moved on to Spain for more fun, and believe it or not, really good crews and PA’s. We seem to have been blessed so far on the European tour, no grumpy or lazy local crews. Our finally show in Lisbon went over extremely well, which made up for the extremely lame load in up a very small lift.
Finally we flew home to NY for a couple of days to catch up on laundry before heading off to Toronto for a show on Thanksgiving day. No turkey that day, though I did at least get a small piece of pumpkin pie.
Our first show on our US/Canada tour started in Toronto at the Phoenix Concert Theater, where they have the oldest Midas monitor desk I have ever seen. Dig the font on the meter bridge.Back into the US for our next show at Magic Stick in Detroit. A small club with a fairly lame PA, but a friendly and helpful house sound engineer, a bowling alley, and some classic neon signs in the front window.
We picked up some lighting equipment at our show in Detroit, only problem was, our bus driver hadn’t gotten the trailer when he was supposed to, so…. Our gear sat on the street with nowhere to put it until a trailer showed up, which was on it’s way, but didn’t arrive till 4 AM. So we sat and waited, well, that is our Tour Manager and Lighting Tech waited as our Roadie and I got some shut eye. Next morning our bus driver asks for a trailer repack to distribute the weight a little better. I guess we couldn’t expect the guys to do a great job at 4 in the morning 😉
On to Chicago and a run of shows opening for Wilco. The beautiful Riviera Theater in Chicago was our first stop, where our soundcheck gets cut short as db Sound tries to figure out why the XTA units wont let them control the subs. Got to love all this computer technology. After Chicago the band and myself took a trip to LA for the Late Late Show, and then hooked back up with the bus in Missoula, Montana.
We beat Wilco to the gig, so with some free time as we wait for them to set up, I took a hike up the nearby hill with a giant M at the top. The building in the middle was the gig and if you look hard enough you can pick out the two tour busses in the parking lot.
.A long drive to Seattle was our next task, and some great weather we had on the way. I woke up to find us traveling down a road that wasn’t really there, I was amazed the bus driver could see where he was going at all. As I sat down in the front lounge to do some work on the computer I suddenly hear the bus driver yell “Everybody hang on to something!” I look out the front window wondering what he is shouting about, and see not the road, but the mountain next to us. In the time it takes for me to wonder what I will do if we flip over, we go from sliding sideways, back to traveling straight down the road. Whew! Seems a transmission line broke and at that point the Jake break gave up, and lost control for a bit. We safely arrived at the next exit, where we sat for hours as a mechanic tried to get us on our way again. A big thanks to that mechanic who spent those many hours under the bus in windy rainy crap weather.
Our show in Seattle with Wilco was a bit of a mess, as the crew couldn’t seem to patch anything to save there lives. Luckily to make up for it, our headlining show the next night in Vancouver at the Commodore Ballroom was excellent. The venue is a “House of Blues” though that isn’t too obvious. A beautiful room, and some really nice dressing rooms with the best showers you could ever see in a venue. Can you say heated tiles on the shower room floor?
A great crew and a really good PA rounds out this fine venue. A Soundcraft series V resides at FOH driving a V-Dosc rig that could do a room twice the size. The only down side (as you can see from the picture) is front of house is way off to the right side close up to the front, so you get pummeled with one side of the V-Dosc rig, but I guess this might help from some folks mixing too loud.
We hooked back up with Wilco in Portland, and then on to San Francisco and a show at the Fillmore. Luckily the Fillmore is only a couple of block from my house, so I got to have some time at home to catch up on mail and things.
The Fillmore’s new house desk, a Crest X, is OK, nothing special. Show goes well, and good to be at home among friends.
We say goodbye to Wilco and continue our tour with a sold out show headlining the Troubadour in LA. Here another Series V in a lame mix position greets me. Nicolai Dunger opens up for us, and it was good to see him again (he opened up most of the European tour with me mixing sound for him as well). Another great local crew gets us through the night.
Next morning a show at KCRW for Morning Becomes Eclectic which went really well (always a pleasure to do the show).
Back on the bus and a long drive to Austin Texas…
Been quite awhile since the band has been in Austin, so we aren’t sure how the crowd is going to be, but luckily we sell about 70% of La Zona Rosa.
Another Soundcraft here, a Series IV. I’m starting to like these “new:” Soundcraft desk quite a bit, plus these meter bridges look great.
Yet another great local crew greets us here. So far we have been really lucky in having some great local crews. How long will it last?
There was a note on the desk – “Anything above Zero will clip the amps”. Hmmmm. How about you turn down the amps, so when the desk clips the amps clip? I find I turn the amps down with a lot of sound systems, get some meters moving on the desk without being excessively loud or damaging anything.
Our next stop was Dallas for a show at Deep Ellum Live, the show went well, though I must say that those Yamaha M series desks are crap.
Another long drive, and we find ourselves at the fine 9:30 club in DC. A nice EAW rig, a great house crew, and a Crest desk that has seen better days.
Up to Philadelphia and our third show at the Trocadero in the past couple of years. a nice surprise to find that they have replaced their top speaker cabinets with some EAW 750’s. Definitely an improvement.
We have some fun here watching the locals grab some bits of crumbling ceiling out of the net that protects the audience from such bits falling on them.
Our US tour finishes out with a sold out show at Irving Plaza in NYC. It took me awhile, but I finally convinced the house engineer to move the house EQ from being inserted on the mix bus to in-line. Weather that made or broke the mix is of question. I think the last time we were here I wasn’t able to convince them to do it. And here is yet another Crest desk showing its age. Luckily there is a can of Deoxit near by.
After the show we try to hang out with a plethora of friends before heading upstate to the bands homes, and some days off before we make our trip to Japan….
Audiosquid 