Here we go! This is a big update. Lots of gigs, lots of pics. And I'm late with it because we've had some family stuff happening at home that needed me more, so I'm just now pumping this out.
P.S. The formatting for this sucker is all over the place because Blogger sucks and Google doesn't care. I just wanted you to know that I see it, but I can't get it to behave, and I'm too far into it to start over.
Thursday, September 4, 2025: Milwaukee, WI. We flew out in the morning. I normally drive to the airport, but since we were going to be gone for a few weeks, I ordered a Lyft. This guy picked me up in his Tesla. Hands free driving on the interstate!
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| G Lee cut some foam for his bunk on the bus |
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| Qdoba for lunch |
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| the official pastry of Wisconsin |
After setting up my keyboards and horns, there was some down time while the lighting and backdrop was set up, so I went for run. Destination Lake Michigan!
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| backstage at the venue |
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| this was dinner |
This venue was, at one time, a sports club, and the basement had a pool, and the room had a ton of natural reverb. We did some promo videos--one of me playing Baker Street, and one of all of us singing Africa a cappella.
According to the local crew, somebody drowned in the pool, and now the building is haunted.
Good gig, but I was kind of tired, and I kept spacing out. This evening's Wheel of Chorus: Biggest Part of Me, bankrupt!, and Thank You for Being a Friend.
There were lots of Sail Across the Sun friends at the show. Not really friends. Maybe just friends with Mark Bencuya.
One of the encores was Baker Street, and my in-ear monitor came apart (the wires pulled out), so I played with one ear open. Sound-wise, it was incredibly disorienting to hear the room on one side and the band very directly on the other.
The band bought tickets to see Spinal Tap 2 in a theater when we get to Louisville, so we started rewatching the original for familiarity.
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| the biggest grain bins I've ever seen |
We're at a horse racing track and used their locker room for showers. Most of the guys were too self-conscious to take showers today.
Two sets, and it was chilly! I did my best with a pack of hand warmers, but it was tough.
1,200 people showed up, which seems kind of nuts for our first time playing anywhere around Minneapolis as a headliner. Maybe next time we can play indoors?
My solos were pretty lame here, so sorry about that. I was cold and nervous (my college roommate was in attendance). The evening's Wheel of Chorus: Baby Come Back and Cool Change.
We finished Spinal Tap before bed.
Saturday, September 6, 2025: Kansas City, MO.
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| but first, coffee |
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| nice room! |
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| Indian food for lunch-very good! |
I went for a run before soundcheck. More hills than I was expecting. I also had to figure out how to get past an interstate split/cloverleaf/curly-Q thing, which required lots of stopping and looking at maps on my phone.
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| dinner! More Indian food |
Fun gig tonight! 720 people in attendance, which was bigger than anticipated.
Wheel of Chorus: Cool Change and I Keep Forgetting.
Ganesh and I were standing outside the buses watching the gear get packed into the trailers when it sounded like somebody nearby emptied the entire magazine of a gun, so we retired early.
Sunday, September 7, 2025: St. Louis, MO. We woke up in a mall parking lot because there was no one to let us into the venue this early, so I sat on the curb and drank my Starbucks.
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| then we drove to the venue |
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| nice room. It looks like a contemporary Christian church. |
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| I went for a run here. |
Mark Bencuya's keyboard was having an issue where one note was significantly quieter than the others, so Kip took it apart. The bottom of the key has a post that pushes on a pad to trigger the sound. The pad must be going bad, but adding some tape to the post fixed it! Score one for Kip!
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| soundcheck at halftime |
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| I've heard this setlist before |
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| A for effort, F for grammar |
Very stale crowd--maybe because it was a Sunday? 1,300 people, though.
I played ok. During Heart to Heart, I thought, "Dude! I'm about to play David Sanborn's solo in David Sanborn's hometown!" and then I messed it up.
After it was all over, I had peanut butter (dinner was in-house catering, and it was an ok veggie wrap thing), and we watched the end of the Bills/Ravens game.
Monday, September 8, 2025: Cincinnati, OH (Covington, KY). We had the day off, so mostly goofed off until lunch time.
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| Indian food for lunch! |
On my way to my hotel room, I dropped one of my AirPods in the elevator, and (of course!) it fell through the crack and into the elevator shaft. The woman at the front desk said that it would be impossible to retrieve it, requiring an elevator repairman and the fire department.
I went upstairs and pondered whether or not to buy a new pair, and if so, where to go to buy them, and then how I would get there. So I ordered a Lyft and went downstairs, and the maintenance guy had been able to somehow locate my AirPod! Hallelujah! It cost me $5 to cancel the car. Woooo!
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| flute practice in the parking lot |
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| clarinet practice in the parking lot |
I went to Ohio for my run.
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| back in Kentucky, the food of India for dinner |
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| hotel room saxophone practice and Monday Night Football |
Tuesday, September 9, 2025: Cincinnati, OH/Covington, KY.
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| I ran here. |
Our gig in Cincy was supposed to be at Bogart's, but the building was having "structural issues," so our show was moved to the Madison Theater in Covington. Bogart's has never been one of my favorites, so it's fine with me if they have to tear it down. This place was ok, but goddamn, what a bunch of doofuses they had for a crew.
They had an Indian restaurant next door, though, so I went there for lunch.
Today took a long time. I think I warmed up for longer than the total time we were on stage.
I wasn't ready for dinner when it was dinnertime, so I had a peanut butter sandwich and two apples after.
This gig was ok. I was bored.
Wheel of Chorus: Baby Come Back and Biggest Part of Me.
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| Post-gig hang in the parking lot; weed is legal here. |
Wednesday, September 10, 2025: Lexington, KY. Just a short drive from Cincy. We woke up in the parking lot of this place. No lobby coffee. There were some convention/meeting things happening, but they didn't have any free caffeination stations set up.
I went with Monkeyboy and Irma Grrd to a lunch place called Penn Station. He eats there regularly at their Atlanta location, and he had some sort of deal where he would get something for free by buying three more sandwiches...I don't remember. Sounds like a bunch of bullshit. The sandwich was ok.
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| we met this guy on the way back to the bus |
The usual stuff--I practiced in the parking lot, practiced on the bus, went for a run.
We had a band outing--dinner and a movie--on this night. First up, dinner at this place. I got a black bean burger, which was good because it wasn't Indian food or peanut butter.
From there, we walked to the theater to see Spinal Tap 2. It was stupid. I'm glad I didn't pay for a ticket. I only agreed to attend because I didn't want to seem like a loser sitting in my hotel room playing saxophone while the rest of the band was out doing something, but...whatever. A waste of my time.
Thursday, September 11, 2025: Lexington, KY. Manchester Music Hall. One of the places we keep returning to, even though we've definitely outgrown it. I am not a fan. The stage is small, the room stage sounds pretty crappy, and the backstage is awful.
I did get up and run before we drove away from the hotel, and I grabbed a Subway sandwich to bring along, so at least I didn't have to deal with that part of the day.
Boring gig. Wheel of Chorus: Turn Your Love Around and I Keep Forgetting.
In other news, I might have a cold.
Friday, September 12, 2025: Shipshewana, IN. It's seven miles from the northern border of Indiana and Michigan. You're welcome. The venue was a performing arts center in an Amish/Mennonite farming community. Seems like it wouldn't have much traffic, but they've had plenty of big names.
In contrast to the night before, this place had a very nice backstage with lots of dressing rooms and places to sit, and they had coffee available when I finally dragged my ass off the bus.
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| Ganesh plots new ways to torment his brother |
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| dinner |
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| the house lighting gear was pretty spectac |
We attempted another a cappella video out by the sunflowers, but couldn't get anything--I think we tried a verse and chorus of Biggest Part of Me, but only half of us are really singing, so the other three of us were just kind of following along for the video, and it was too shaky to post. Maybe we could practice these at soundcheck and make sure we're doing everything correctly and balanced before the camera is pointed at us? I don't know...I feel like the finger is pointed at me (maybe rightfully so) when somebody is singing pitchy, so I try not to participate, but not contribute anything.
The whole idea of chasing the Instagram algorithm gets old pretty quickly.
Anyway, very good gig here. It sounded good and we played well. It seemed like people liked it, but they were seated and didn't know what to do about that.
Wheel of Chorus: Turn Your Love Around and Easy--which snuck up on me again, and I again fumbled through what my part should have been. I did something weird where it modulates to the new key, and then I played the background vocal/soft brass part with my string sound. I'm a mess.
I also played a wrong note in the solo for Arthur's Theme, which was one of the encores. I brought more alto offstage before the encore and played it quickly, but I messed it up when I had to play it for real, which also means that it's going to take a month to erase that sliver of doubt about whether or not I can do it. I hate my life.
Saturday, September 13, 2025: Cleveland, OH. The House of Blues in Cleveland is sad, dirty, and old. It seems like they've made sure the lights turn on and the PA makes sound, and nothing else.
We had tacos around the corner from the gig. This taco bowl thing was excellent, even with whatever that fake meat was. Our waitress had serious Chrissie Hynde vibes.
Pete found a multipurpose path and sent me a link so I could run there. Cleveland's industrial era bridges are pretty awesome to look at. I'd rather see stuff like this than an art museum collection.
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| new bridges, too |
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| along this path were there really cool townhomes |
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| a House of Blues staple: the Impossible Burger and fries |
On to the gig: surprisingly good crowd! The last time we played here (like ten years ago?), there were some dudes who'd crossed over from Canada to come see us. They didn't make it on this night--too bad. I was hoping to see them.
Anyway, yeah. I wish Cleveland could cross over from being shitty to being gritty, because I want to like it. Maybe that's an Ohio thing. Does any of that make sense?
Whomever operated the cardboard baler in the loading dock put these bales of cardboard directly behind the bus, and for second it was unclear how the drivers would extract us from this predicament. It was a pretty dumb thing to do to us--hey, ho, way to go, Ohio. The House of Blues local crew guys came out at the end of the night and helped us wiggle them out of the way.
Sunday, September 14, 2025: Columbus, OH. Today's gig was in an old church. The green room space was all in the basement, and had appropriately scary bathrooms. Scary in look and smell, I should say.
We were there too early to get in, so I walked to a pretty shitty coffee shop. They had coffee, though. I guess that's enough.
The venue was open for us in time to for lunch, which was catered. Not bad.
It's an interesting space--I wonder what it sounded like. According to Kip, the positioning of the speakers made it difficult for him to push the volume up before the front line microphones would begin feeding back.
We tried another one of those a cappella jams after soundcheck, and I did my best not to mess it up.
Dinner was also catered--the vegetarian option was something liked stewed tomatoes over potatoes. Whatever it was, it was good. I had two plates. Maybe it was stewed potatoes with tomatoes. Anyway, I ate a lot of it.
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| plate #2 |
I'd gone for a run earlier in the day through swarms of stinkbugs and rough parts of town, but after dinner I went for a walk around the neighborhood.
Wheel of Chorus: Biggest Part of Me and Rich Girl. Solid crowd for a Sunday in a city where we've never played a gig.
Nick's bracelets on his right arm got completely tangled in his guitar strings at the beginning of You Make Loving Fun. He came over and showed it to me, and for a second I couldn't even process what had happened. I couldn't stop playing to help him, so he ended up having to leave the stage for most of the song so the guitar techs could set him free.
Our bus hosted a whiskey tasting. Hans had a lot to say about each bottle.
Monday, September 15, 2025: Ann Arbor, MI. A day off in Mark Bencuya's hometown. We went to Zingerman's Deli for lunch.
The rest of my day was spent hiding in my room, practicing in the parking lot, going for a run, dinner from Chipotle, and some practicing in my room. Multiple people in our gang spent the afternoon high on psychedelic mushrooms in the courtyard of the hotel.
Tuesday, September 16, 2025: Detroit, MI. I got my run in before we left Ann Arbor.
Today's venue, Saint Andrew's, had the smallest stage of the tour, so the assembly and placement of the lights had to happen before any of the gear could be set up, so we went straight to lunch.
The food of India (truck form) awaits just a few blocks away!
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| delicious |
The rest of the day was pretty much the usual thing. I played flute in the parking lot, I played saxophone in the upstairs bar, we played Ride Like the Wind and Somebody's Baby for soundcheck.
I also went back for more Indian food for dinner.
We swapped out drummers, so Ganesh went home and Nackers flew up to meet us. He woke up the night before this gig feeling terrible. He thought spiders had bitten him while he was sleeping, but it turned out that he got shingles. He was hurting today.
Good crowd! Most of them were Bencuya's friends, but they were cool. We had a good show.
The Wheel of Chorus: Baby Come Back and I Keep Forgetting.
Insert a run and a trip to Subway here...
Thursday, September 18, 2025: Pittsburgh, PA. The day began with morning TV promo (Nick, Pete, and me playing Summer Breeze).
I thought I'd be able to go back to sleep when we got back to the hotel, but it didn't work.
The buses drove to the venue (Stage AE) with plenty of time to kill, so I went ahead and knocked out my run, down the river path, ate my sandwich, and set up my gear.
Good gig! This place is pretty great. We're fans of this city.
Wheel of Chorus: Cool Change and Purple Rain (I remembered my part!).
Friday, September 19, 2025: Clarksburg, WV. We woke up in this tiny town--I actually woke up before 9:30!--after a rough night. The bus felt like it was all over the road. We definitely drifted onto the rumble strip a few times.
Anyway, we ran out of coffee on the bus, so Pete (Olson) walked to a store and bought a box of Keurig's pods for our machine. It was touch and go for a little while.
After the coffee, I went for a run. There was a path nearby that was pretty decent.
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| lunch was surprisingly good |
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| one of the green rooms |
This was one of those places where the stage faced west, and so our gear got pretty hot in the afternoon sun. Not a fan of that. It did make for a "let's hurry up and get out of here" soundcheck.
Dinner was gross, so I opted for peanut butter and fruit. They had a ton of watermelon, and it was all bad. Like, inedible. Very disappointing.
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| this guy, with BBQ sauce on his white pants... |
As you might guess, we had a very small crowd, but they were into it, so it was a much better night than we thought we'd have.
Wheel of Chorus tonight: bass solo (Greg pulled us into Groove Is in the Heart) and I Keep Forgetting. The wheel likes that one these days.
No showers at this venue, so we had two hotel rooms (twenty minutes away, though--like, get on the interstate and go to the next town!), and about half the band opted to make the trip (and none of the crew). Totally worth it.
Saturday, September 20, 2025: Philadelphia, PA. Another morning of waking up in a Target parking lot until the venue opened.
Brooklyn Bowl. Not bad, but soundcheck at 6, show at 9...it's a long day. In case you're wondering, there's no bowling during the show.
Pretty run-of-the-mill. Nothing to report, playing-wise. We did a social media video where we signed the camera lens during Pina Colada.
We (Nick) picked people out of the crowd for the Wheel of Chorus, and we got some guy named Jerry for one of the songs. Instant celebrity! The crowd erupted into "JERRY! JERRY!" chants a couple of times. I think it was his birthday, too.
Anyway, Wheel of Chorus: Careless Whisper (I did ok) and Biggest Part of Me (my usual BS).
Also, multiple fights during our show! The staff was nonplussed about dealing with it. I guess that's Philly for ya.
Sunday, September 21, 2025: Baltimore, MD. Baltimore is dirty, like how I think the Bronx looked in 1983. Gentrification has yet to occur.
The last time we played in Baltimore, it was some place where the air conditioning had died, and we played there anyway, and it was hot and stinky. We were supposed to play there again, but...their air conditioning died!...so we got moved to the Nevermore Theatre, an Edgar Allen Poe themed room. The Nevermore used to be called Rams Head Live, and we played it many moons ago. It's in this old blog post from 2012.
Anyway, the Nevermore, and their printer problems. Fix it!
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| Also happening today in Baltimore: The Big Dill Pickle Party! |
So...solid gig. Nothing memorable happened. Good crowd, though.
Wheel of Chorus: bass solo (we went into Groove is in the Heart again), and Cool Change.
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| we made it! |
We rode the bus back to Atlanta. It was too far for one driver to do it, so the bus company sent a second driver to cover, but our second driver was too hungover from a bachelor party, so we picked up the owners of the bus company in between Knoxville and Chattanooga and they drove us the rest of the way.
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| so long to my bunk |
We got back to the bus depot around 1:30 PM, and the crew guys had to pull everything out of the trailers behind buses, pack the vans and trailers, and send Bruce and Hans west towards Colorado. Ouch. That's rough.
Thursday, September 25, 2025: Atlanta, GA to Colorado Springs, CO. Delta upgraded me from my usual window seat to a Comfort Plus middle seat...no thank you! The seat map said there were no other seats available, but I got on the chat and they moved me (downgraded me!) to an exit row window seat with twice as much leg room as the Comfort Plus spot. I guess that's a win!
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| Qdoba for dinner |
Friday, September 26, 2025: Colorado Springs, CO. Nick invited me to go for a hike this morning at a place called Garden of the Gods. He walks fast, so it was a pretty good workout. We listened to all of Freebird in the car ride from our hotel.
After a shower, I had lunch at Chili's (veggie burger and fries), and then grabbed my Chipotle order for later--the band had a dinner option, but I couldn't find anything suitable, so I opted to find my own.
This is a new-ish venue in Colorado Springs. It's huge! I wanna say it seats 7,000 people. Big stage, too. Also, a big annoying doofus crew (I watched five people try and attach the skirt to my riser); lots of people standing around talking and not helping (I guess they were waiting on the decision about setting up lighting?). The backstage area was nice, though.
Apparently, the venue wanted to cancel our show because of low ticket sales, but we said no (we'd already booked flights and hotel rooms), and they'd still be obliged to pay our guarantee, so they gave away a bunch of tickets--it ended up being something like 700 tickets sold, but 2,000 people in attendance.
They don't show up well in the picture, but out in the stadium seating, they had fire pits in every section, maybe a hundred in total? A wild scene, like a Roman colosseum (or the concert in Lost Boys?)
Wheel of Chorus: Lonesome Loser, bass solo (we jumped in with Greg on Silly Love Songs), and then I Keep Forgetting.
I was playing fine until the last three and a half songs, where I spiraled out of control. On Rosanna, I stepped on the wrong sustain pedal, and for a second, I couldn't figure out why my keyboard was going berserk. Once it made sense, I had to stop what I was doing and begin again, and that left an awkward gap where I wasn't playing.
On the intro to Oh Sherrie, somebody played a wrong note (I think it was me, but I'm not totally sure), and then I kind of froze because I didn't know what was happening, and then I had to jump to get to the last note before the vocals start. And then I played something weird in the first verse, but I'm not sure why it was weird.
In one of the sax parts of Baker Street, I got disoriented looking at the trusses and lighting above me and played the end of the line in the middle of the line, and then I didn't know how to play the rest of it because I'd already ended it.
I was telling Peter Searcy about my troubles, and he said, "It's probably the altitude." (We're at 6700 feet). I think it was more that I was tired and bored, and just couldn't pay attention.
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| Our hotel sold canisters of oxygen, so Monkeyboy bought one. |
Saturday, September 27, 2025: Aurora, CO. The real reason we were out here--to play a private fundraiser for some kind of healthcare thing. It always makes me wonder how that works that some company is spending a jillion dollars to hire us to play a fundraiser where they're trying to raise a jillion dollars.
Before we left Colorado Springs, I got up and went for a run. It was all rolling hills on my route, and I had to walk some of it. Maybe I should've slept late and ran in the afternoon in Aurora, at the much lower altitude of 5,300 feet?
The van and trailer and the gear truck left around 10:30 AM for Denver, and the Sprinter van for the band left at noon, delivering us to our hotel about an hour and a half later. First stop--Renegado Tacos. It's good, and it's right up the street.
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| 3 cauliflower tacos |
After lunch, Nackers and I headed over to the venue (Gaylord Rockies Convention Center) to set up our stuff. By the time we got there, the drums were already built, but my stuff was not. We hung around until the rest of the band showed up for soundcheck.
Once we'd heard everything, we went back to the hotel to kill several hours of downtime. I did some flute stuff in the parking lot.
We headed back around 8 PM for a 9:30 PM start (damn, that's late!), enough time for me to realize that they weren't feeding us, so I cobbled together a dinner of apples, bananas, and a peanut butter sandwich.
Good crowd for this one! We played for an hour and then handed it over to a DJ. While he did his usual bar mitzvah set, we rushed all of our gear off the stage and into the road cases. The crew guys said that the push back to the loading dock was a quarter mile. Damn!
Sunday, September 28, 2025: Denver, CO to Atlanta, GA. I flew home with just enough time to turn around and go play my church gig. My brain didn't exactly appreciate it. I played fine, though. Here's a little flute solo from it.
