Away we go

After a couple of days at home to change the clothes and not much more it was off to London for production rehearsals for the UK/Tour. After loading in on Valentines day apparently our skeleton mascot decided he was getting into the spirit of things


We had a couple of days at 3 Mills Studios in East London to integrate the new parts of the show that we didn't have in the US due to the bigger venue sizes over here.





I had some of the strangest cushions in a hotel on this trip too. Kinda cool though i think


So with rehearsals all sorted it was time for the first show but what do we always do before the first show??? A warm up of course.
This one was something a little special as The Killers and Coldplay teamed up for a one special one off charity show at Shepherds Bush Empire in aid of the War Child Charity. What had the potential to be a logistical nightmare was actually a relatively easy day as both sets of crew were only interested in making a show happen and not the "well, we're the headliners" meantality you see sometimes.


So after both bands played short sets of 9 songs each(The Killers giving one of the best performances i've ever seen from them in 400+ shows) came the unknown.

There was talk of all sorts of crazy collaborations taking place all day long and this of course meant a lot of backstage learning of songs had to take place



It was like rock star guitar lessons back there for a while.
So in the end you ended up with Killers, Coldplay, Bono and bizrrely Gary Barlow from Take That performing 'All These Things That I've Done'.




(Trade Secret #1-Bono wasn't doing his usual bending down to the front row trick-He had the words on an A4 piece of paper on the floor)
I did bust out my Bono-esque shades for the night though.

(Trade Secret #2 - They're just safety goggles)

Also Clarke, our monitor guy was getting pissed off at the lights above him shining on his desk monitors. So he constructed a makeshift defence against it.


For some reason the band took to calling me Potato a couple of years ago so Clarke now has the anti-potato-shield

So after the weirdness of that night it was off to Dublin for the first European show proper of the Day&Age tour 2009.
The show was at the brand new 02 arena which took the the place of the old Point Depot Arena.

It only opened in December so is still relatively new.


Not quite sure what the bears outside are all about thought to be honest


It was a great start to the tour with the Irish crowd living up to its mantle as being one of the louder ones around for sure.





i also decided to include a little home town pride into the end of the show by putting up the tri-colour as the band were walking off the stage




Next up we were off to Belfast for show #2 at the Odyssey Arena, again another loud crowd was lying in wait and another great show was had.


After an all too brief visit to the aftershow party for some drinks with old friends it was back on the bus to head back to Dublin and take the ferry back across the sea to England and half an evening off in London before the first of 2 shows at the O2 arena at the Millennium Dome. These were the bands biggest headline shows in the UK so far barring all the festival stuff we've done so they were extra eager to impress and now that there is a couple albums worth of material to choose from they can change the setlist around a little depending on what they feel like playing. There was some changes over the course of these 2 shows.

Out went Shadowplay, World We Live In and Losing Touch. In came Sweet Talk, On Top and Smile Acoustic. Hopefully this continues, it at least gives me a little variance as well as those of you who go to more than one show.


After a few tech nightmares for me the first night, the second show was really good and we were off and running to a day off in Birmingham.

And what better way to spend a day off then to rent a car and head off down the motorway to Nottingham to watch Metallica play from the comfort of a private box.
Unfortunately the car i had booked was unavailable so i got a Vauxhall Insignia, which was actually quite a nice little ride

Seats were pretty good as well weren't they

Watch this bit of video from the end of the show and look out for Ray, the Killers live keyboard/violin/extra guitar player
(I.E. The guy in the dark in the back) singing along to Seek & Destroy



So back to Birmingham we went with heavy metal screaming in our ears for 2 shows at the LG Arena which is where you find me now on a bus in a parking lot beside some train tracks. Oh the glam of it all

Lahndan Town!!

So here we are in rehearsals in London getting ready for the UK/EU leg of the tour. Have been here for 2 days and the first show isn't until Friday back in Dublin. Everything is loaded in now and we await the band before we load out and play a small charity show at Shepherds Bush Empire with Coldplay for Warchild.

By the way, for anyone who has seen the video backdrop we are using on the current tour, here is the foolproof method of fixing the screen. Check out the red section at the top of the video.



Thank god for Nerf Footballs eh!!

Home In The Snow

Home now and it seems the snow apparently followed me. Ireland had been under a blizzard for a few days before i left the states and mine was the only flight to Dublin from the US that wasn't cancelled but when we landed in Dublin the airport had been closed so due to the approach ways to the terminal being frozen over we were unable to deplane for almost 2 hours after landing. We then spent another hour waiting on bags and i eventually got home almost 4 hours after landing....im usually home within an hour and a half of landing at the airport. All the snow did make for some fantastic scenery up around my house.





On another note i was quite happy to see that my long search for a jukebox had come to an end.


I also received a surprise package which turned out to be a platinum disc from Alicia Keys, which was very nice of them to send to me i thought.



I did see something a little random when i was stopped beside a security van in a car park.

Quite why they would inform any would be thieves that the escape hatch is on the roof is beyond me.

Weird Helmet Guy

After a snow filled day off in Georgetown during which i went into DC to take a walk around, it all looks quite good covered in snow.
I did find it a little unusual to see this key hole on the outer gate saying 'Welcome To The WhiteHouse'


It was also a little strange to see the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial frozen practically solid though.

You probably could have walked on it but i wasn't too interested in trying out the theory myself.

Next day we were off back to the Patriot Center in Fairfax, VA for a show. This one had the unusual distinction of having the first stage invader of the year, complete with a very unusual piece of headgear. He apparently walked straight past all of the security before climbing up onto the stage. Apparently the security thought he was one of the crew. I don't think any of us dress like this. Check out the video!!


After that we were of to Myrtle Beach for the smallest show of the tour(not including the warm up in Boulder). We only managed to get in half of the screen and that was it. Oh well, easy day for my crew guys eh


Next up we were off to Atlanta for a show at the Civic Centre which in all the times i've been to Atlanta i've never been to this venue. It was a good show but also tonight i obtained my new desk mascot. This skeleton sat atop my desk for the entire Sams Town tour and this year he has a new flag to carry thanks to my good friends Ashlyn and Lyric.


Now we're off to Nashville for a show at the Grand Ole Opry.



This is quite a famous venue for the recording of the TV show of the same name which has hosted the best in country music so in honour of this the guys decided to break out their cover version of 'Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town' and they invited Morgan from our opening act M-83 onstage to sing the female part of the song.


Today unfortunately wasn't a great day for some of our crew. There had a been a nasty bug going around the bus during the tour and today it reared it's ugly head as our long serving monitor engineer Clarke missed his first show in almost 4 years, he was hospitalised with Gastroenteritis and a bout of pneumonia and would have to spend the next couple of days recovering in a hotel room in Nashville before flying out to meet us in Houston a few days later. Another of our PA crew had the same thing and unfortunately was not able to rejoin the tour and had to be flown home.
Luckily they both made full recoveries within a couple of days.

Ray apparently thought that the illness surrounding our bus was too much to deal with so he put on his best "Asian outfit" in an attempt to combat this.

So we were onto the final run of this tour with a 14 hour drive to Houston for a day off on Superbowl Sunday. We managed to shoehorn the show again into the Verizon Theatre in houston amid everyone having thoughts that the tour was cursed as Lew Lew, our stage manager had to be taken to hospital after suffering chest pains during load in and one of my lighting guys almost knocking himself unconscious on a motor. Luckily they were both ok and returned to work that day with a full bill of health each.
Next day i managed to disprove the theory that 'Everything is bigger in Texas'. Except my lunch portion apparently


And all of a sudden we were onto the final show of this leg at the always fantastic Nokia Theatre in Grand Prairie, near Dallas. This is probably the best venue in North America of its size.


I especially like the handrawn posters that are made for each show for each band to sign and are then displayed all around the backstage areas.


There is a poster backstage of the Pat Metheny Group backstage which bears a pretty striking resemblance to our own Dave Keuning. What do you think??

It was a great end show to the tour even in Brandon did stumble over the name of the area and almost called it Grand Rapids but managed to correct himself in time.

Even though it was the last show, Geoff apparently thought the tour was already over and had another of his trademark mid show naps.


So there we are off home we go for a week before flying to London to start the european leg of the tour.

Getting colder

Next up we were off to Ypsilanti (Near Detroit) for a day off in the middle of bloody nowhere. Today was also the first day of the "Killers Crew Weight Loss Challenge". Basically a couple of us were feeling a little portly after the Christmas gorging so we had a weigh in in Chicago and whoever loses the biggest precentage of their original weight by the end of Australia in April will win the pot of $350. Ok so the winner has to take everyone out for dinner in Phoenix once the American tour restarts. So after the weigh in I was surprised to see i was already 10 pounds lighter than i though i was. It is quuite funny now to see us all thinking twice about what to eat and drink and everyone is trying to make the others fall into temptation by leaving desserts and cakes strewn around their work areas. Fun and games all round, some people are talking about last minute colonic irrigations to help them win but i think i'd rather not win somehow.

Anywho, our day off was spent in the freezing cold Ypsilanti area with nothing but a Cvs and a Big Boy Burger joint for company.
Check out the ice hanging off the hotel.

I did notice that there must be some really tall players at this college, just check out the height of the hand driers in the locker rooms. I thought these things were normally hung around chest height. Bear in mind Matt is almost 6 Feet tall.

Today was a day of changes in the show, for the first time we were able to install the side ramps to the stage.

It was also the last day for one of the videos we were using for 'Read My Mind'. Unfortunately the low resolution of the screen didnt really lend iteslf to this particular piece of video content.


Next day we were off across the border for a show at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto. Today was an unusual day as i had to do an interview for Professional Light & Sound magazine. Always a strange thing to talk about the design elements of a show and the photos are always cheesy ones posed in front of the desk. Such as this one.....


I did prefer this one though.

But anyway i'm sure i'll post the self indulgent trite once it is published in the coming months.
Anyway, apparently there was a show in there somewhere.


Next day we were off to New York for a day off in one of favourite cities. Our show here was at the world famous Madison Square Garden.


I always forget how big the MSG scoreboard is until they bring it down to the ground level.




After a rocking New York show as always we were off to Boston the next day for a show at the Agganis Arena. I did have a hard time convincing a couple of over zealous fans who were hanging around outside the venue trying to meet the band. They were hanging around the crew buses and didnt believe me when i told them that it wasnt the bands bus.

I can kind of see their point, i mean look at our buses(above)...now look at the bands bus (below)


Our drivers were able to get to a carwash i guess eh!!