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Show one ... Atlanta's Variety Playhouse.
Great to be here for the start of our historic tour.
Great to see all the players... we arrived from different places.
Adrian's band drove in with him from Nashville -- that's Julie Slick on bass and Tobias Ralph on drums.
Of the Stick Men part of the tour... Pat Mastelotto flew in from Texas, Markus Reuter from Innsbruck, Austria, I flew in from Newark, and our
sound engineer and tour savior Robert Frazza drove the van down from Kingston NY, with equipment, cd's, t-shirts... only 960 miles!!
Two bands to set up at soundcheck... the first few days of getting it down will be a little hectic.
First emotion; thrilled to see the players - it's going to be a fun tour.
Second emotion... oh oh, the van is the wrong color!
I know, I know, nobody cares about that but me, but it was supposed to be white, and ... well, it's a long story - I'll explain later.
One theme on this tour will be the "meet & greets" that have been arranged before many of the shows.
These are not the band's doing -- just something I guess clubs and theaters like to do now - people pay an extra fee and get to come in during soundcheck,
then we'll say hi, sign some things, take some photos ... sounds pretty much like what we do after the show most nights, but in a less crazy setting, without
the whole audience there.
Anyway, this first "soundcheck" was more than that, being our first time with the six of us together and lots of Crimson material planned ... so we were
just starting to play when folks entered.
Some intense King Crimson fans here, I'd say!
We did not get to run through all the new material, let alone much of the music each trio would be playing... but soon enough it was showtime.
Too much going on, in the Stick Men opening set, for me to even think about taking photos!
But after we finished, (and after a quick run out to the lobby to sign some shirts and cd's) Adrian's band took the stage
I hope I'll be getting better shots of them as the tour goes on, but wanted to just give some flavor of what went on the first night.
After their set, (now two hours into the show) Pat and I came right out to join Adrian for a few pieces with the 3 Crimson members - 3 of a Perfect Pail,
Elephant Talk, Sleepless...
Then joined by Markus, Tobias and Julie... Markus, Tobias and Pat went into B'Boom... the thrakking drum duet with cloud soundscapes...
And we were off, into Thraak, Dinosaur, Frame by Frame, Indiscipline, and more.
Anyone who wonders why we do this, all the travel and work setting up, then packing up, late nights, early mornings...
You can see the reason why right here...
Great fun, and good to be underway on our tour.
Packed up the gear, squeezed it into our vans, headed off to find the hotel...
Tomorrow, with 7 hour trip to Carrboro, NC, and a 3pm loadin, we'll be leaving early!
Tuesday morning: Got on the road at 8:15. Drive isn't too bad today... maybe 6 hours plus Atlanta traffic. But the venue we're going to,
Carrboro, NC Arts Center, needs a "quiet stage" from 4pm to 6pm. We run into that once in awhile on the road - either for union rules, or as in this case,
other activites in the building, they need you to not be hitting drums for a period. What it means for us is that we need to load in before 4pm, so we
can be ready to quietly connect wires and things, til 6pm, and do soundcheck then.
Okay, in Carrboro now, and that's the way it went. A bit awkward, though, because at 6pm they let in the people who had bought tickets for a 'meet & greet'
with the band... and we were just beginning to soundcheck.
We did our best - played through only a few pieces, and very quickly (adding Red to the set tonight... Adrian and Markus hadn't played it together yet,
so running that was a must.) Then we hung out with the folks there for a bit of time, and at 7pm doors opened for the show audience.
The drummers, Pat Mastelotto and Tobial Ralph, backstage
Robert Frazza and John Sinks, in a rare moment, not working!
Julie Slick and Markus Reuter
Some shots, after our Stick Men set, of Adrian's Power Trio show...
Have I mentioned that I'm using a different camera on this tour? (!)
At a good friend's wedding last Sunday I got excited taking pictures and dropped my camera. It still works, but about half the photoe come out with bizzarre
color scheme... maybe I'll take some with it later in the tour for fun... but I grabbed an older camera to come out on tour. Now I'm remembering why I
replaced it ... needs a lot of light to get the picture.
Here's what the stage looks like to John Sinks, doing our monitors...
Coming onstage to join Adrian for the Crimson set...
Double drumming into B'Boom
Sept 21, it's off to Knoxville for our show there.
This is a city I've driven by a lot, but haven't played here much.
As on many nights, there are some people who have tickets to come in early to see soundcheck, and meet us afterward.
At soundcheck, I've dug out my other camera ... the one that I dropped a week ago and now it's making the pictures funny colors...
It seems I have a choice between blurry out of focus shots at the shows, or these odd looking ones
with occasional lines across the picture...
But anyway, it's great how the audience gives us energy
Here's the bow...
Great time, great show.
Tomorrow we have a long drive to Annapolis -- 8 hours, then soundcheck by 3pm -- so it will be an early morning.
We've chosen to stay a half hour outside of Knoxville to get a start heading East - so there's a bit of a drive after the show.
It's time to start a new page, and to introduce you to the world of Rock and Roll Quilting!
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