Before I Forget

 I'd better update this sucker before I forget everything. 

After a weekend of no gigs, we got back into it in Milwaukee at the beautiful Pabst Theatre. Looks good, sounds good, and the definitely an upgrade over our previous trip here (where we played on a raked stage (tilted down towards the audience). 

The audience was small; we definitely didn't have anybody in either balcony, but the few hundred people in the floor level were very appreciative that we made the trip this far north. 

Late in the show, I went up front for the solo in Maneater, and when I returned to my usual position, I noticed that the F key felt weird--I'd lost the pearl! NOOOOOOOOO!!!! Luckily, it fell off right in front of me, so I scooped it up to be reattached later on.

The following day, we headed down to Chicago to play at the hallowed ground of the Pavilion at Ravinia. In the hundred years of its existence, this stage has hosted (in addition to annual summer series by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra) Barry Manilow, Duke Ellington, Aretha Franklin, James Taylor, Yo-Yo Ma, Sharon Jones, Dolly Parton, Sheryl Crow, Tony Bennett, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra with the Atlanta Symphony Chorus featuring the talented vocals of a first alto named Beth Freeman, and some other people. You get the gist of it. Big show!

What you can't see from the stage was the lawn outside, which was completely covered with people picnicking and listening to the music. I think the lawn spots may have sold out--it was that full. Inside, it was significantly thinner. Still, it was a pretty epic night. My love of Chicago remains strong.

Also, I was thinking when we arrived that the area totally looked like the neighborhood from Risky Business, and I was right--we were a mile and a half away from Joel's house! I wish I'd looked up the address--my run that afternoon took me one street over from his.

Oh yeah...after the gig, we mapped ourselves to the wrong hotel, and Nick just about lost his mind on the lady at the front desk before we realized that our reservations were somewhere else, and that was the reason there were no beds where we were. Oops! Get back in van! 

The next weekend, we began the slate of gigs at the massive Pavilion in Boston. It is an enormous, intimidating place.

I was a bit concerned about weather for this show, as the forecast put the temperature in the sixties with rain and wind. With the venue being right on the water, I thought I might end up with cold, stiff hands and shitty playing, kind of a replay of our gig in Cape Cod a few weeks previous. Fortunately, that was not the case. I wore a suit jacket to begin the evening, but I was warm enough to eventually take it off.

The following morning, we headed to the airport for a fly date to Cleveland, Ohio. But first, a flat tire!

We landed in Cleveland in the late morning with several hours to kill before heading to our gig. As usual, I went for a run (it was terrible! I was exhausted! it was hot and windy!), and then refueled with pasta.

The sprinter van that was supposed to pick us up from the hotel and deliver us to the gig turned out to be a party bus with no room for gear or luggage or our knees. It was funny for a minute, but we made them send us a more conventional van/bus thing with seats.

Our gig for the evening was a party in Canton, Ohio, for newly selected NFL Hall of Famer, Steve Hutchinson. Pretty cool! We had good backline gear, and I felt extra stupid that I took my wireless microphone receiver out of my fly gear and thus had to use a regular old microphone on a stand. 

I saw Peyton Manning, Charles Woodson, and Matt Hasselbeck. There were many other guys there who were obviously pro football players--enormous dudes amongst the normal sized humans. Hutch came back in our dressing room before the gig, and he couldn't have been a cooler guy. And he could also probably break your neck.

Also in attendance was Guy Fieri, who lit up a cigar early in the gig and proceeded to send a continuous cloud of cigar smoke our way for pretty much the whole two hours we were on stage! 

The gig ended late (12:30 AM), and we had to travel (via another sprinter van) back to Cleveland. A few hours later, we were back at the airport, this time headed to New Jersey to return to our gear and regular gigging.

The Stone Pony in Asbury Park, New Jersey, is a legendary venue mostly because its connection to Bruce Springsteen during his formative years. Playing the Summer Stage (outside, basically a giant festival stage in a parking lot one block over from the beach), is pretty amazing.

Limp Bizkit did not end up playing their show the night before us. They showed up with a sick band member (with COVID),  set up and soundchecked, and then decided that they couldn't do it, so they bailed. Soon thereafter they canceled the rest of the tour.

lunch!

Extra cool. There were about a billion people there; the weather was great; the atmosphere was great. We were rock stars. 

My only blemish was the middle of the Africa solo. I'm trying not to let two measures out of twenty-five songs ruin my night, but COME ON! I'm again having some major mental hiccups with this. 

Everybody slept like the dead after these two days of gigs and travel.

Onward we traveled! The next day, we made our way back to the Bottle and Cork in Dewey Beach, Delaware (weren't we just here a week ago?). Somewhere along the way, we ate lunch at a strip mall, and they had an Indian restaurant! Score!

Bottle and Cork...and Bencuya.

The venue repaired some blown out speakers in the PA, and this place sounded waaaaaaay better than last month! It was loud, but in a good way. I liked it. The energy of the crowd makes for a fun hit, even though it's a shitty dive bar kind of place.

Maybe the best version we've ever played of I Keep Forgetting--because it was louder and more aggressive than we usually do it.

We slept late again, and I had some sort of veggie burrito for lunch in my hotel room as the rain swept through.

The last show of this run was at the Freeman Arts Pavilion--a socially distanced event somewhere in Delaware. We tried to do this gig a month ago, but it got rained out. This time, the rain cleared off, and we were able to get it in.

This show was just ok; there wasn't a whole lot of energy from the crowd, and I crashed and burned on the goddamn Africa solo again. No matter how many times I play it perfectly before the gig (and during the gig, with the volume turned off), my psyche is kicking me in the fucking nuts. 

Tuesday morning, it was over. We drove a couple of hours to Washington, DC, hopped on a plane at Reagan National, and flew home.