So, after our Christmas break it was off to Los Angeles for rehearsals at Sony Studios in Culver City. We were rehearsing and building the new show in Studio 30 which has seen such movies as Ben Hur, War Games and Hancock but most importantly the mighty Spaceballs.
Once the show was built i spent a good few long days and nights programming all the lighting and video cues for the show which is now based on a list of 35 songs spanning all 4 albums, of which probably 16 or so songs will be be played every night. These will mainly be the bulk of the new album and the Hits from the other 3 albums with the remainder of the show being 4 or 5 songs picked from the rest of the list on a nightly rotating basis.
After a week or so of rehearsals we flew off to Colorado for 2 shows.
Rob, our drum tech and sometime live percussion player and Chris, one of our PA techs were wearing the same shirt and quite funnily ended up sitting together on the flight. Dont they look cute!!
The first of which was a small warm up show at the Fox Theatre in Boulder. This is the 2nd time we have played at this venue, it is quite a nice, small intimate venue, perfect for a warm up show.
It was a crazy night as during the show somebody stepped on a cable and unplugged it accidently meaning that the bands monitor rig, which allows them to hear what they are playing and allow them to hear each other. While this was being fixed Brandon didn't realise that the PA was still working and that the audience could still hear them, or maybe he just decided to try something different, so he and Dave played a version of Tidalwave without anything plugged in or any microphones. Needless this was something that will probably never be repeated.
Next day it was off back to Denver for the first arena show of the tour with the full rig at the Magness Arena.
Considering this was the first night of the tour, it went pretty well but as always there will be changes to be made. next up was a 15 hour drive to Minneapolis and the first freezing cold snow of the tour. it was not a lot of fun to load in during -25 degree weather
This was a considerably smaller venue than this show was meant for so we had to basically shoehorn the show in and we just about managed to.
Apparently the day took its toll on some people as Geoff, my Front of House Lighting tech proved an innate ability to be able to fall asleep during the show
Next day we were off to Chicago for a show at the UIC Pavillion which had us in Chicago on the day of the hometown hero Barack Obama being sworn in as the next president of the United States. Here's hoping he gets a chance to prove his worth before people start complaining that he isn't changing things. it's going to take quite a while to change and correct the mistakes of the last 8 years.
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