September 29, 2009: Madison, WI: The Majestic

Madison Show Thoughts

For being such a tiny theater, the Majestic is a nice place to see a show with its high ceilings, more than adequate p.a., and close proximity from audience to stage; sure, we were unable to set up the entire show production (sorry!), and we were crammed like sardines on stage; however, the energy of the show was high and motivating. The night in Madison came with an extra challenge for me personally in that I was cornered off in the back a bit, and I had some extra keyboard duties we were testing out for the upcoming flight date to Austin City Limits Festival. Nevertheless, it was enjoyable and memorable.

The one disappointment of the night had to deal with an audience member. Unfortunately, up towards the front of the stage, a young man kept pushing and elbowing a couple of young ladies. Eventually, he stopped (with a little personal intervention), and everyone was okay (I talked to the “victims” afterwards, but not the culprit, unfortunately, since I would have liked to ask him a few Qs).

Now, I’ll ask one thing about slamming/moshing (and I must add that to the extent I witnessed last night, this "dancing" was not "artful" in any sense as it once may have been somewhere during some earlier time period but rather just pushing one another mindlessly) at our shows: WHY? We’re not UnderOath or Sepultura. I understand that for the most part this type of thing usually comes from adolescent males with pent-up aggression needing some sort of release. Okay. I was there once, but please, if you must, THINK. Look to your left and your right, and be understanding of those who are around you. I’m pretty sure that more often than not, your concert-going-neighbors will NOT want to engage.

Despite having to address this rather sour event, cheers to those who came and rocked out with us in an agreeable and enjoyable fashion.

September 27, 2009: Pontiac, MI: Cargo Clutch

Pontiac, MI Show Thoughts

Definitely, this show was less “glitchy” than last night. The Pontiac crowd energized me. They were amazing, following us the entire journey of the show; this was the fourth show in a row, and being that we haven't toured this hard in a while, we were a bit on the slow side before we hit the stage, but our incredible fans turned it around with their excitement and love, giving us a huge jolt of what we needed to perform. We changed some songs around in the set, which I think helped the overall flow. The Pontiac set was as follows:

“The Nerve” (hitting it as hard, loud, and quickly as possible right off the bat feels great)
“Backfire” (settling into a nice more laid back groove but still within the high dynamic and same arrangement as Letterman)
“Chaos” (first oldie with an almost punk tempo and energy behind it)
“Clipping” (taking it down to 6/8 feel, but within the higher dynamic with soaring vocals & thick synth bass and special upright outro, which by the way, to answer some questions about my set up: for this tour, I’m playing mainly my Mocha 1976 Fender Precision Bass, my 1950s Kay Blonde Upright, and for “Burden” I’ve been working in my Purple Sparkle 1973 Fender Mustang Bass; for synth bass: I use Logic running various different and totally original sampler instruments I created; more importantly, I run them all through a Roland 201 Space Echo.
“No Response” (an electro/sampler interpretation on this one with special lighting effects)
“Plan B”(high energy from the second oldie but goodie)
“Stare/Obsolete” (abridged version with full outro)
“Electrify” (new arrangement for live, landing the one, two punch-especially last night: thank you MI)
“Armistice” (some new exciting electro elements with some nasty funk and drum ending; got to kick it into higher gear here mentally and physically or my hand will fall off ; 0)
“Odds” (nice original dynamic in this one with cool vibes, lots of marching drum, & synth bass)
“Noticed” (oldie you can sing along to)
“Typical” (oldie you can scream along to)
“Burden” (taking it to a new place with some Motown influence and special improvised outro section)

*** (Intermission/set change/can I get some water?)

“Pins & Needles” (DK on cocktail kit, G on drums, P on Rhodes, RMC on upright)
“Spotlight” (new extended arrangement for probably one of the best times in the set for me)
“Reset/Break The Same” (oldie but hard hitting grooves linked together for big finale)

September 26, 2009: Cleveland, OH: H.O.B.

Cleveland House of Blues Show Thoughts

Remember my theory that every show on the tour should get progressively better as we move along down the road since we are playing more and more, thus, perfecting our “show craft?” Well, last night’s show in Cleveland didn’t follow that reasoning. We had a lot of technical problems. For example, when “Clipping” was suppose to start, my bass synth keyboard cut out or never came in rather; thankfully, I have a back-up keyboard nearby and it triggered correctly once Paul started singing the verse. So, there was a big gapping whole at the front end of that song. Example 2: Paul landed on my pedals after one of his Rhodes flips and cut out my bass completely for about 20 seconds of “Break The Same.” 20 seconds on stage scrabbling around in the dark trying to figure out where a bad connection lies feels like searching for a needle in a haystack for about 20 minutes. On the other side of the stage in Greg's world, there were plenty of other issues as well, but I won’t go into it.

Now, even though we had a lot of technical things go wrong, I must say that Cleveland made it all okay because they made me feel that all the bad tech stuff didn’t matter too much. There were many other glorious moments that trumped such seemingly small, unnoticeable flubs. For example, I thought the crowd clapping and loud singing in “Spotlight” and "Noticed" was amazing; "Armistice," “Obsolete,” and “Reset/Break” moved the dance floor. Also, we successfully debuted “No Response” last night, and I’m curious to know how people liked or disliked the performance of this song; if you were at this Cleveland show, please comment about that song specifically. So, at the end of the day, it wasn’t the “best show of the tour” but we had a night full of exciting moments and energetic highs.