Atlantic City

Hey-
It's been a long time since I've been to Atlantic City. And, come to think of it, before this tour, Atlantic City was my reference point for the whole casino culture. By the time this tour is over, I'll have spent time in casinos in Vegas, Reno, Atlantic City, and Connecticut (Mohegan Sun). They're all somewhat different, sure. But they're all exactly the same.

Casino audiences are notorious for having half-interested high-rollers in the prime seats. The casinos give these seats away to their VIPs to distract them from the inescapable fact that they're pissing away their fortunes at the tables and slots. These people don't know if it's Conan O'Brien or Phantom of the Opera. "Give me a free show to regain my sense of importance!" Sometimes they actually get up and walk out in disinterest. Or for need of another cocktail. These are not good audiences. And we had TWO of them yesterday. To the real fans cheering from the back- thank you. We hear you, and we appreciate it.

The Borgata Hotel is nothing to get excited about. The fact that a water main broke during our stay, turning all water black, didn't help matters any. No showers at the Borgata- and use bottled water to brush your teeth. But whatever- the only double-show day of the tour is done. We're on to Radio City, which should be fantastic.

Harvard University

Today we played a tiny 4-song set to close out the Harvard University Class of 85 25-Year Reunion Talent Show. We had to be there in the early afternoon (driving from NYC and back) to setup and soundcheck. But we didn't end up going on until something like 11pm. And that left time to find a cool pub in Harvard Square, and enjoy some oysters, charcuterie, and a sampling of beers.

I returned to the beautiful Sanders Theater, half in the bag, to discover that the show was running late. So we all sat around in a dressing room, with Conan riffing, playing guitar and singing, and repeatedly thanking and apologizing to the crew for the silliness of the gig. We had a television in the room, showing us the talent show as it progressed above us. Some of the performances were, simply put, painful. It was kinda horrendous. Conan, Mike Merritt, and Jerry Vivino played a rendition of the White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army" on acoustic guitar, upright bass, and flute. It was like joining the fucking circus.

After our long-awaited set of 15 minutes, we quickly boarded the bus for the four-hour booze cruise home to the Essex House in NYC. It was 4:30 am when we rolled up. Bed, sweet bed.

Back in New York City

New York is the best place ever. We'll be staying at the Essex House, overlooking Central Park, for the next five nights. Thursday the 27th, we'll take a stripped-down crew to Harvard University for a quick 4-song closer for Conan's 25th year reunion (yes, he's a Harvard grad). Then we'll have a couple more days off in NYC before heading to the Borgata in Atlantic City for a two-show evening (the first and only on the tour).

Ohio State Univ. Columbus

Hey all,
After a day off of room service and nice cushy bed sleep in Columbus, we played the Schottenstein Center on the Ohio State University campus on Monday the 24th. It was probably the largest arena we've done so far on the tour. It was also a free show, available only through OSU to its students. They curtained off the top tier of seats, reducing the capacity to around 5000.

The crowd was loud and clear- a combination of the hockey-rink acoustics and the younger, enthusiastic audience. The room's natural reverb time was several seconds.... fun to whistle a tune loudly in (which may or may not go over with the local stagehands). But it was also a bright, brash-sounding venue. Which sucks for both Brian at FOH and me at monitors. I had to darken the sound of the wedges, then boost them a good bit, to get stage sound over the roaring room echo without shearing their faces off with treble. Because I've been doing single venues for long stints for years, I'd nearly forgotten how hard you have to work at times, just to make things sound "almost normal." This is excellent practice, really.

Tonight, when Conan yelled "O-H!," the crowd would SCREAM back "I-O!!" This is Ohio State University's cheer. Naturally, this happened several times during the show. It was maybe the loudest public cheer I've ever heard.

One cool thing about this venue is the ample bus parking and loading ramp space. All three of our trucks stayed docked all day, ready for load out. All the buses were right there, ready for lounging, changing, napping. This definitely makes the day go more smoothly. I grabbed a quick shot of a couple girls I saw on a pedestrian bridge, overlooking the loading dock. Check out the signs. She's kidding, I think.

Toronto's Massey Hall

Hey,
We crossed the border into Canada without incident (at least MY bus did), and arrived at the famous, historic Massey Hall around 9am. Massey Hall is very old, and it shows in terms of the lack of dressing room and wing space. I was so far onstage that I looked like I was in the band. Which was great, really, for the view of the audience I got. The bad news? The coffee was utterly undrinkable. The new term I've learned is "asswater."

Massey Hall was fantastic. Sounded great, not a bad seat in the house, and the crowd totally kicked ass. Made the bad coffee more than worth it. I enjoyed the 60-ish year-old woman with the reversible sign "Bless You Conan" and "Leno Sucks" sitting in the second row. As historic as Massey Hall is, it really could use a loading dock and backstage renovation. The ice-cold showers, few backstage bathrooms, and crazy long ramp load-in through the front of the house made for a somewhat difficult day.

There are displays inside the venue corridors which highlight the artists who've visited Massey Hall each decade since its inception in 1894. The display for 1934- 1943 featured, among other things, a nephew of Adolph Hitler who evidently came to Massey Hall to explain "What the German People Are Thinking." Weird.

Toronto itself didn't seem that unique to me. Other people on this tour tell me it's a great city to have a day off in, but I only had about an hour to walk around in search of photo-worthy sights. I ended up seeing several nice, old churches, a couple trolleys, and the fountains at Toronto's answer to Times Square.

After the show, we traveled to Columbus, Ohio for a day off before our Monday show, at the Schottenstein Center on the Ohio State campus. The border crossing was easy on the way back into the States this time- we didn't even have to get off the bus. I slept the whole way, around 8 hours. More on Columbus in my next post.

East Lansing, Michigan

Hi everyone,
Tonight we played at the Breslin Center, an arena on the MSU campus in East Lansing, Michigan. The seating in arenas is different than in a theater or performing arts center: generally there are two or more tiers of seating all the way around the center floor section (for sports viewing). For concerts, usually the seats behind the stage aren't sold (or other times they're sold as cheap obstructed-view seats for a really hot act). When an artist books an arena, they can configure the venue how they please, in terms of stage placement and seating. Most of the time, the seating wraps around the sides of the stage. This requires additional PA speakers to provide adequate coverage for those side-stage seats.

Well today the additional PA, supplied by the venue, wasn't working properly. They found this out after they already had the arrays (clusters of speakers) flown (rigged on chains up in the air). They spent a good hour trying to figure out why one side sounded totally wrong. I had to wait for this process before beginning my daily monitor listens and adjustments (for the sound of the venue). So my usual early afternoon camera walk wasn't to be. Hence the limited pics. Evidently Magic Johnson went to MSU. The things you learn on tour.

Now we're on our way to Toronto, Canada. We'll cross into Canada in about an hour. Hopefully we won't all have to line up for customs. Last time we sailed right through on the way INTO Canada, but had to get out and answer questions on the way back into the US. Whatever.Let's just get it over with, get a few hours sleep, and get set up in Toronto so I can walk around and experience another city.

Dammit. There's no internet connection- the driver may have already disconnected it so that the tour wouldn't incur roaming fees while in Canada. So I probably won't be able to post this until tomorrow in Toronto.

Update:
We got right through Canadian Customs, and arrived at the historic Massey Hall in Toronto around 8am. More on Toronto in next post.

Chicago Theater

Wow- the Chicago Theater is stunning! I love all of the ornate, gilded details of these older theaters. The first show was a little bit of a let down, after a string of wild crowds. For whatever reason, the crowd was somewhat tame that first night. But the second night- wow! Maybe the best night of the tour. A pair of drunk chicks in the second row grabbed both Pender and LaBamba's asses as they ran through the crowd. Funny shit.

After the first show, Conan threw a party for us all at a swanky rooftop bar atop the Wit Hotel. Very nice. The next morning we were pretty much ALL hungover. I was with it enough to veto the after-after-party at a bar across the street, and opt instead for a taxi back to the hotel. So shitty as I felt, I was among the more cheerful people on the crew thursday afternoon. Still though, you'll notice I don't have any touristy pics of Chicago......I was in bed til the last possible minute. Partying like a rock star turns out to be hard work.

Notice the "Late Night w/ Conan O'Brien" mural: that's from when Conan did a week of Late Night shows from this same theater, back in 2006. I was still only the backup monitor guy for the show at that point, so I didn't go. The "Late Night with David Letterman" mural is from 1989!

Minneapolis Show

The show at the Orpheum was good- a decent crowd, though not quite as boisterous as our Dallas, Austin, Tulsa, and Kansas City audiences. The Orpheum is another beautiful theater.

The pics of ropes with red handles are pulls to raise or lower the pipes which hold drapes or set pieces.

Check out the frankenstein-looking equipment I came across in the basement- it's an old heating unit. Or at least that's what they want me to believe. Hmmmm.....

Day Off in Minneapolis

Hi everyone,
We arrived in Minneapolis around 9:00 this morning. I went up to my room, took a shower and much-needed shave, and made some coffee. I found a nearby CVS that could fill a couple prescriptions for me, and ended up on a three-hour walking tour "on my way back to the hotel." Now it's almost 4:00pm here, my feet are blistered, and my camera's batteries are dead. So you'll have to wait for pics.

My errand to CVS took me to the edge of Minneapolis' theater district. Usually when I hear the words "theater district," I expect to find a run-down section of town, where the once-opulent theaters that aren't boarded up show porn flicks. New York is the only place I've seen with a vibrant, busy theater district. And if you ask anyone in the NYC theater scene, they'll tell you it's been in decline for decades. So I was surprised to find a legitimate section of surviving theaters in Minneapolis. The whole area has a cool, artsy feel to it. All of the electrical boxes along the streets are custom painted by various artists. There are nice restaurants around, too.

Minneapolis is also a very interesting architectural city. So far, in terms of intriguing architecture, I'd say Minneapolis is second only to San Francisco.

After walking for maybe a half hour, I ran into guitarist Jimmy Vivino. While we chatted a bit about the neighborhood, he mentioned that the river (Mississippi) was only a few blocks away. Thus began my walk to the riverfront. I had read that there's an historic old stone arch bridge nearby that served as a railroad bridge at one time. When I reached the riverfront, I saw many bridges. The old stone arch bridge was in the distance a bit. There was a modern bridge right in front of me, so I decided to take it across the Mississippi. I thought I'd get a few shots of the old bridge from the middle of the newer bridge, then head back to the hotel. But everything I saw made me want to walk a little further, then a little further, then just a little bit further. It turns out that this little section of the Mississippi River, with it's falls (the only falls on the entire river), is the reason we have Minneapolis in the first place. So the city has clearly invested some real money into preserving the riverfront as an historic place. There's trails and viewing areas and benches and picnic tables all along the river. Now this isn't really the Mississippi you think of when reading Mark Twain: it isn't that big here, and it isn't exactly clean. But I still had to touch it, so I took a little trail down and dipped my hand. That water sure was a'powerful slimy, I reckon. Sorry.

I ended up crossing the river on the new bridge, while walking and taking pictures for an hour or so on the way to the old stone arch bridge. I crossed back over the old stone arch bridge, and made my way back to the hotel via the Skyway. Oh- the Skyway! Minneapolis has this cool Skyway feature: many of the downtown area's most prominent building are connected at the second-floor level. So you walk from building to building, over the city traffic. It's very cool. It kind of makes all of the area's prominent business building lobbies open for public use. Pretty cool.

Another cool town on tour. Tomorrow night, we play the Orpheum here in Minneapolis, then head to Chicago for two nights. Room service pork chop and pinot noir awaits- goodnight!