Hi and welcome to the blog.  We’ve returned safely from our 21-day tour of the east coast.  It was quite an amazing time and best summed up by Chase (our road manager and friend since childhood) as “Four months worth of life in three weeks.”  So , I’m going to be recounting our  happenings with pictures and videos. I hope you enjoy them.  Feel free to leave comments. Especially if they come at Alejandro’s expense.  :D

 

 

June 21, 2009:  I sit up in bed and rub my eyes.  7:58 a.m.  The phone rings.  Colin.  Alright, at least he’s alive.  But it’s almost 8 and he’s calling instead of knocking…

 

He sounds out of breath but calm, “Tristan, what is the address to the hotel again?” I tell him “15th and K.”  ”Oh, ok. I’m on 17th and J.  I’ll be there in a sec.”  Thatta boy! He comes through in the clutch!  We have to be sound checking five hours north in New York City later that day and we’re gonna make it!

 

I half-heartedly saunter into the bathroom and start brushing my teeth.  Chase’s phone rings a few minutes later and I hear him say in the distance, “No. 15th and KAY! Alright, hurry up.”

 

We have to be out of here by 8:30 in order to leave time for traffic.  We all get dressed and packed and still…no Colin.  We try calling him but he doesn’t pick up.  Chase opts to go retrieve the car, which is parked about a mile down the road, and pull it ’round front.  I’m double checking the room when I hear a knock.  It’s Mike.  ”Colin made it.  He’s showering now.” 

 

I go into their room to make sure everyone’s good to go and Colin looks at me with a huge smile and says, “You’re so lucky I’m here right now.”  

 

I don’t think I’ll ever forget that quote. The irony, the circumstance, the delivery.  It was gut-bustingly hilarious…and relieving.  During the drive, Chase told us the full story as Colin lay passed out in the back seat.  He was walking out the front door of the hotel onto 15th street when he spots Colin directly across the busy avenue – going full sprint (which looked apparently quite goofy) jetting by businessmen in their suits, dressed in the same clothes as he had on last night and looking straight up at the sky for…whatever reason.  Chase screamed his name and he stopped, looked right at him and bearing a face full of teeth pointed back at Chase with his two index fingers.

 

I felt the need to share this story because I find it extremely funny but I’m afraid I won’t be able to do it complete justice.  You’ll have to ask Chase to replicate Colin’s “run” for that.  It brings the house down everytime.

 

SO…Where were we?  Driving to NYC for our first of three shows there.  We were booked at the Triad Theater, another proper auditorium where a few regulars of SNL like to drop by and perform improv.  We arrived safe and sound and woke Colin up from his deep slumber and after eating at the diner around the corner from my Dad’s place, set off for the venue.  It was a rainy Sunday night in the city and Chase did a great job driving the rig across town.  The venue was pretty fancy and was set up much more for cabaret than an actual rock show but the acoustics were very good and they had a sound man who knew what he was doing. 

 

 

- On a side note. If I’ve learned anything from playing live, it is this…no matter how good your band is,  you’re only really as good as your sound man.  We’ve played scorching shows where we all thought it was as close to perfection as possible, only to hear the tape and realize that the vocal was completely missing or the audience could never hear the piano etc. I think behind a great crowd, a sound man is the one thing that really makes or breaks a gig.

The only complication of the gig that night was that mindlessly, they repainted the black stage that afternoon so as a byproduct of setting up, we got paint all over our clothes and equipment which was annoying.  Eventually, the staff covered the floor with garbage bags.  There’s a first time for everything, right?

 

 

The show itself went very well.  The venue had a baby grand piano so Ale opted to play that instead of the keyboard which was a very nice change of timbre.  Poor Colin never did quite catch up with his rest, despite a pre-show karate chop session from Chase.  He felt pretty shitty but like a true performer, soldiered through it.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were extremely pleased with the turnout on such a rainy night and had a lot of fun talking to the kind people who saw us after the show.  Once we loaded up the car, we had the intention of parking the rig on the street and hitting the town but the former proved a lot tougher than we thought.  Eventually, we wound up in New Jersey at 3 a.m. parking it at a friend’s house.  A exhausting ending to a very long day.  We let Colin stay home though….:D

 

We are off the next day! AND……Rich finally joins us after his epic European travels!  Good times are ahead!

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 6th, 2009 at 2:13 am and is filed under Four Months In Three Weeks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.