packing my bags
Well I will be packing my bags and hitting the road again in a couple weeks. Not only will I be out with Five For Fighting but I have to do another tour right before.
I will be out with Theory of a Deadman for a few weeks filling in for their current lighting director. I will joining up with them on Feb 7 and be out until Feb 27. The following day it's a cross country flight back east to start the Five For Fighting tour.
So I will be busy for the next 2 months and it will mean crosing the US several times.
Here are the dates for FFF if you haven't seen them, they are on the
website too.
1-Mar MON Burlington, VT Higher Ground
3-Mar WED Boston, MA House of Blues
4-Mar THU New York, NY Grand Ballroom
7-Mar SUN Westbury, NY Theatre at Westbury
8-Mar MON Philadelphia, PA Electric Factory
9-Mar TUE Washington, DC Lisner Auditorium
10-Mar WED Charlotte, NC Fillmore
12-Mar FRI Atlanta, GA Center Stage
14-Mar SUN Orlando, FL The Plaza Theatre
16-Mar TUE Oklahoma City, OK The Diamond Ballroom
17-Mar WED Omaha, NE Sokol Auditorium
18-Mar THU St. Louis, MO The Pageant
20-Mar SAT St. Paul, MN The Fitzgerald Theatre
21-Mar SUN Des Moines, IA People's Court
23-Mar TUE Milwaukee, WI Turner Hall Ballroom
24-Mar WED Chicago, IL The Vic Theatre
25-Mar THU Kansas City, MO Beaumont
27-Mar SAT Aspen, CO The Belly-Up
28-Mar SUN Denver, CO Ogden
30-Mar TUE Salt Lake City, UT The Depot
1-Apr THU Seattle, WA Neumo's
2-Apr FRI Portland, OR Crystal Ballroom
3-Apr SAT San Francisco, CA Regency Ballroom
6-Apr TUE Los Angeles, CA The Wiltern
7-Apr WED San Diego, CA House of Blues
9-Apr FRI Irvins, UT Tuacahn Ampitheater
Labels: FFF, Five For Fighting, Theory Of A Deadman
Another tour I won't be working
Well John (aka
Five For Fighting) will be hitting the road this fall. It will be an acoustic tour, with John and guitarist Greg Suran. I have not spoke to him (John) directly. I did talk to the sound engineer/tour manager who will be working with him on this tour. The full band will probably not tour until 2010. I will not be out on the acoustic tour.
Anyway here are the dates if you haven't seen them.
18-Oct Toronto, ON El Mocambo
20-Oct New York, NY City Winery
22-Oct Bay Shore, NY (Long Island) YMCA Boulton Center
23-Oct Uncasville, CT The Wolf Den
24-Oct Washington, DC Jammin Java
26-Oct Boston, MA The Paradise
27-Oct Philadelphia, PA World Café Live (downstairs)
29-Oct Nashville, TN The Belcourt
30-Oct Chicago, IL Lakeshore
3-Nov Salt Lake City, UT The State Room
5-Nov Seattle, WA Crocodile
6-Nov Portland, OR Aladdin Theater
10-Nov San Francisco, CA Swedish American Hall
11-Nov Los Angeles, CA Largo at the Coronet
As for me. I will be in Memphis in September with Eyrkah Badu working as her lighting director. I am covering for her regular LD on the show.
Also I was contacted about another tour in October. I was asked to send in a resume and so now it's wait and see.
Labels: FFF, Five For Fighting, Lighting, Memphis, Touring
Lots of luck and all bad
I have usually had fair luck in my life. It is kind of like that Seinfeld episode where Jerry always comes out even. That is me.
This spring I have had several tours come my way, which I have recently posted about here. For one reason or another things didn't pan out and I ended up not working these tours. If my past was a barometer I should have had something else drop in my lap by now. It hasn't and I am beginning to become concerned.
The summer touring season gets underway in a few weeks.
Some good news. Five For Fighting (aka John Ondrasik) has begun recording music for his new CD. He mentioned to me he hopes to tour sometime by late summer or early fall. The guys in Finger Eleven are currently writing for their next CD. So there is potential work going in 2010.
Until then I have tightened the money belt and continue to network. I will have to ramp it up a bit I guess.
Labels: FFF, Finger Eleven, Five For Fighting, Roadies, Touring
To the Five For Fighting fans
Over the last month or so I have noticed a lot of people coming to this blog after searching for Five For Fighting tour dates. I'm sorry to say that there are no plans for John and the band to do any touring anytime soon. John has been playing a few charity, corporate and other events solo but no band shows.
I am not sure what his plans are for 2008. Our conversations have centered around hockey lately. Plus I have been busy with the Finger Eleven camp and their tours which continue next week.
Feel free to contact John at his
website or myspace. I know he tries to answer all his email.
In the meantime if you haven't done it, go out and buy the latest concert DVD from his most recent tour. You will get to see my work right on your tv or computer.
Labels: Concert, F11, FFF, Finger Eleven, Five For Fighting, Touring
My work in print...wait video..no photo...
It has been an interesting year in 07. I have been fairly busy having done three different tours with various musical styles. One of those tours was with Five For Fighting who I began touring with in 2002 and have worked with John (the only actual member) off and on over that period. We did some touring last year at this time and then again this past spring.
During that time we filmed a concert in Orlando which will be released to the public next week. I have mixed feelings about it. I am glad it will be coming out especially for John's fans who have been asking for this for some time.
However I wish we could have filmed it with a lighting system that would have translated better to video. We were carrying a small moving light package but not a complete system. So for that show we used the in house system at House of Blues along with the lights we carried.
I should wait till I have seen the whole thing before I pass judgement.
If you have been reading this blog lately you know that I am currently working for Finger Eleven as their lighting director. Plans were to film the show in Toronto this week during the Canadian tour. Of course we never got that far into before the tour was cancelled.
I am disappointed to say the least. Today, we were sent over 900 megs of photos shot during the tour. Most of them early on before I had the cues finalized. The show was looking good and I planned to add a few things for the shoot. The pictures came out great. There are some shots which I believe will be in a DVD they will be releasing in December. This is not concert footage from the new tour but previous stuff along with old video's and photos.
Hopefully we will have the opportunity in 2008 to shoot a new live concert video.
Labels: Concert, Finger Eleven, Five For Fighting, Lighting, Touring
Tan and not very rested
The picture here sets a bit of the tone of this post. These are some of the riser from this past weekends show. The stagehands decided to just toss them over the side of the stage after the change overs.
Actually the show went fairly well.
No this weekend was another one of those airline nightmares. Started on Friday with a connecting flight through Dulles in Washington DC. It seems a woman on our flight had a checked bag that was flagged at security. No problem I know that has to make sure everything is ok. The weird thing was they told us we could get off the plane and get some food and that it would be about 45 minutes. At this point they just said it was an airport security issue and didn’t say it was our plane specifically.
After about an hour they begin paging a passenger. Turns out the woman they are looking for went to the bar to have a drink.
Let’s just say not only did our flight get delayed over an hour and a half. They were at least a dozen other flights affected.
Now Sunday is where things get interesting. Myself and Dave our guitar tech arrive at the Sacramento airport around 9am to fly home. He is going to Denver and I’m on my way to Rochester via Chicago. I find out my Chicago flight is delayed over 2 hours because of the inbound aircraft. Turns out they had to swap planes.
I finally get out of Sacramento around 1pm. Funny thing is Dave called me from Denver while I was at the gate and he was home already. Thanks for rubbing it in Dave.
I get into Chicago after 7pm and I had already been booked on later connection. The thing was I had a 2-hour layover. It’s father’s day so it is usually a slow travel day. Not tonight, O’Hare airport is a zoo. Plus flights are delayed all over the place.
I finally arrive in Rochester just after midnight. Plus with my 40-minute drive home it’s nearly one a.m.
At least I don’t have to get on another plane for about a month. I will be doing a new tour, which starts at the end of July. I will be posting more on that in the next few days.
Labels: California, Concert, Five For Fighting
Weekend in sun...oh wait Day in the Zone
On Friday it's off to the west coast again to do what will probably be my last Five For Fighting show for awhile. The album cycle is pretty much over for the latest CD.
John has a couple of acoustic performances later in the summer but that is about it.
So this weekend we will be doing a radio festival for KZZO radio in Sacramento. It is an afternoon show and we will be the next to last act. Our set time is 2:30pm which is pretty early. Smashmouth will be the closing act on this one. We seem to do a lot of these radio shows with them.
Still waiting on word of the tour in late July that I may do. The dates were finally announced yesterday. My fingers are crossed and emails are going back and forth.
Labels: California, FFF, Five For Fighting, Sun
Wine, women......and balloons?
Three days and 4600 miles later I have gone from the east coast to the west coast and back again. The show went well considering everything.
We did it without our regular monitor engineer. The guys from the production company did their best. However a word of advice, have someone wire the stage that knows what the hell they are doing.
The venue was in a beautiful location just outside of Temecula California, This is a wine area hence the wine and balloon festival that we played. Everyone was very nice and the crowd was appreciative. The picture you see is the stage early in the day.
We didn’t see any balloons flying around during the day because it was too windy. They did blow a few of them up in the evening but they didn’t fly them. I took a couple of pictures but my camera sucks outside at night.
The weather was nice but a bit cool for this time of year. We were all wearing hoodies during the show. It is hotter here on the east coast right now.
At this point I am off the road until June 15 when I do it all over again and fly to Sacramento.
Labels: Concert, FFF, Five For Fighting, Live
Another tour complete
36 hours at home and I still have the road on my mind.
I’m sitting here waiting to go to the dentist. I woke up in a great mood this morning and the day quickly turned bad. While I was flossing a piece of a molar broke off. I can’t believe it! I have excellent teeth; go to the dentist every six months. I was just there in March. I knew something was wrong though a week ago. The tooth just didn’t feel right and planned to make the call when I got home. Just glad it didn’t happen while I was on the road.
Looking back on the last five weeks. The tour was a success as far as the shows. Most of them were sold out and the band played great. I had the pleasure of working with three great crew guys. All of them total pros. We worked our Asses off and were tired all the time. We did have some fun and had a lot of laughs.
With that said, this tour was one of the strangest I have been on in a long time. If you know the movie Spinal Tap you will understand. I have mentioned it previously, some of the problems we had.
It looked like the last week would be fairly easy. Four shows in a span of six days. We got to the end only to have the last night become the biggest headache of the tour. It wasn’t a trailer problem this time, but a problem with the bus. We left Chicago around 3:30 am for a drive to Minneapolis for the last show.
I woke up around 7am to find us stopped on the side of the interstate. I knew something was wrong. The driver mentioned the transmission was overheating and downshifting. In my head I’m thinking there won’t be a show today and go back to my bunk.
Several hours later I wake up again and we have only traveled a short distance and find us in Rockford, IL. A tow truck is called and we end up at a truck service center. It’s now late morning and we find a truck to take the gear to Minneapolis. So you guessed it we transfer it in the middle of the parking lot. There is something very familiar about this task. Oh yea we did this four other times and usually on a day off. By this time we have it down to a science.
On this day I get left behind since there are four crew and only room for three. At first I am not happy about it, but then I think I can get some more sleep. We tried to get a passenger van for the band but no luck. The bus company we are using finds another bus in Chicago and my self and the band will ride on that. This is great except they tell us it will be a 2-hour wait.
Three hours later the bus shows up and we transfer all the bags over and off we go. We are about 5 hours from the gig and the show starts at 7:30 with Chantal. Our guys are to go on around 8:45pm. Not going to make it so the show is pushed back a half hour.
We make it and arrive around 8:20pm. Randy, our drummer joins Chantal for the last couple songs of her set. He has been playing with her the whole tour.
If we had been late the show could have still gone on since John has flown into Minneapolis that morning.
The unfortunate part was I didn’t have time to really go through the house lighting rig and also did not use the moving lights that we were carrying the whole tour. So the show ended up being very generic from a lighting standpoint.
It’s fine no one goes to see the lights anyway.
So it’s 10 days at home and then off to California for a one off late next week. We will be doing a couple of these during June.
Hopefully I will be doing a full tour starting in July. It will be something completely different from Five For Fighting. I am just waiting to get the confirmation.
Labels: Bus, FFF, Five For Fighting, Touring, Travel
Hello Cleveland!!! Hello Cleveland
The road is a strange and wonderful place at times. You see things and get to meet people from many walks of life. After several shows and many miles traveled the crew arrived yesterday in the city dubbed the Home of Rock & Roll, HELLO CLEVELAND!! To coin the line from the movie Spinal Tap.
We spent Sunday eating, going to the movies and hitting the nightlife. I had a chance to see the film “28 Weeks Later”. If you enjoyed the first film “28 Days Later” you will like this one too. We ended eating at an expensive restaurant which I usually only do once a tour. I had the lobster tail of course, which put a huge dent in my per diem.
While reading the local entertainment rag, we noticed that Lemmy was in town. As some of you know I am a fan of Motorhead and yes the man himself was in town playing a club. On this night it was with his side project The Headcat, which also includes the drummer from the Stray Cats. The play a couple original’s but mainly rock and roll standards. It was very cool and if you can you must check it out.
Today we decided to hit the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Now I have been there several times over the years including several times with artist’s who performed for events there. Today we were treated to a behind the scenes look at items that are not on display but are located in the vault. This included the last passport of John Lennon. The jacket Prince wore in Purple Rain, one of Steven Tyler’s outfits and a jacket owned by Hank Williams Sr.
They will be opening an exhibit for the Doors starting next week and we saw a couple of the old guitar cases in the vault. Unfortunately the guitars were already in the display cases, which we didn’t get to see, we asked if we could get a sneak peek. They politely denied.
The nice young lady who runs the vault mentioned to us that a few of the things on display are actually copies. One of them was a song lyric that Lennon had written on the back of what looked like a brown grocery bag. We saw the copy on the exhibit floor later. I wonder how many others are copies.
We have just four shows left on this run. There are a couple of one off’s in June which I will probably be doing.
In the meantime I am looking for a summer tour. I have a few things in the fire but nothing has confirmed.
I hate looking for work.
Labels: Concert, Five For Fighting, Road
Mobile.......help
Stuck in Mobile Alabama for 14 hours while your bus driver sleeps is not my idea of a day off. Sure we are in hotel and we get to have a day off.
This usually means spending money on things you don't really need. I don't care much for malls but when there isn't much else to do that is where you end up.
I did buy some DVD's today. Volume 4 of Family Guy which I will add to my collection. I also purchased a couple of older movies that I did not have. Amazing how fast you can spend $50.
Off to Orlando at 1am for the show at House Of Blues tomorrow. This will be shot for a web broadcast which I still have no idea when it will air.
Another day of stressed out people.
I'm out.
Labels: Five For Fighting, Touring
Snow in Wyoming.......yep...that's what that is.
One week into the tour.
Where am I? I find myself in Wyoming at a hotel. There is no show here we are just passing through on our way to Kansas City. The next show isn’t until Thursday. We are coming in from Mormon country, aka Salt Lake City.
The tour is going well for the most part. The crew is exhausted however. Our days are long especially since we are all doing double duty or in my case triple. I actually sat down today to eat a real lunch.
We have done a couple of good venues and a few bad ones so far. The best venue so far is the Wiltern in Los Angeles, which of course is John’s hometown. The local crew there is also one of the best in the country.
I wish I had some pictures to post but I have only taken a few and none of the show so far. I’m not going to get into details about the last week, mainly because it is a bit of a blur.
We have three shows in a row coming up which include two in Texas. Next Monday we will be in Orlando at the House of Blues. If you are attending dress nicely since the show is being video taped. Five-camera shoot, which will be broadcast on a later date, on the Internet, I believe. Not sure when or what site.
We also found out the show in Louisville will be opening for Collective Soul. I have done shows with them in the past and they are a good band. The problem is a very small stage. SO I have decided not to use the lighting we are carrying and will just use what is provided.
There is also going to be a TV appearance on FOX in NYC, the morning of the Philadelphia show. Really looking forward to that, NOT! Up way too early and on a show day. Loading in at like 5am for a 9 or 9:30 performance. I believe this is the same show we did back in the fall. We have to then load out at 10am and drive to Phily.
So if the crew seems tired and punching that day you will know why.
I will try to post more, hopefully our internet connection on the bus will be repaired soon.
Labels: FFF, Five For Fighting, Touring, Travel
Are you kidding me??!!
It's mid April and spring time at least that what the calendar says. Well it seems we are going to get a big snow storm here in the Northeast tomorrow and Monday.
This could not come at a worse time. I have a flight on Monday at noon to Los Angeles. We could see around a foot of snow. Hopefully the airport will be getting flights out, even if they are delayed.
Then there is the fact of driving to the airport. This in itself could be a challenge since I live 45 minutes from it.
I asked management if I could be booked on a flight tomorrow several weeks ago and they said no. Of course I asked this not because of the weather, but for the fact I wanted a bit of prep time with the lighting equipment that I will be carrying on the tour.
Now there is a potential I could miss the first show.
Labels: Airlines, Airports, Five For Fighting, Snow, Weather
3 Days on the road...Part 2
To continue yesterday's thoughts. I returned home early on Wednesday. The LA to Chicago flight I took was full, no surprise. The worst part of it was the 10 year old sitting behind me who decided to periodically kick the back of my seat. Now kids will be kids, but some parents really need to be slapped. When you sit there and let your child disrespect people and act like that I would hate to see how they treat you on a daily basis.
Don't get me wrong I don't hate kids, but I do hate when they think they can do whatever they want. Children are a product of their home environment.
So I made it to O'Hare without losing my temper. My connection home was delayed however. Imagine that, two Chicago connections delayed in the span of 72 hours.
Upon landing in Rochester I find the weather has changed drastically and it is 30 degrees and snowing. Oh well.
On a different note. Management mentioned that the first CD is now out of production. I am talking about
Message for Albert. So my suggestion is if you don't own it get it now. I know we are only going to have a limited number available for sale at the shows.
Labels: Airlines, Airports, Five For Fighting
3 Days on the road...Part 1
The corporate date we did on Tuesday is over. Things started out with a couple of flights to California on Monday. Of course my connecting flight out of Chicago was delayed, thanks American Airlines. I finally got into LAX around 10pm.
The crew did get to stay at a
Ritz Carlton hotel right on the ocean. Now this is a place to spend a few days. Too bad we didn't spend much time there.
The venue was very nice. It's basically an opera house that was just built in 2006. There is a picture of it that you see at the top of this post. This is from their website.
The band and our guitar tech drove down from LA where they are rehearsing.
Just before sound check I was out working with the house lighting crew trying to get some programming done on their new console. They have an ETC EOS, which just recently came on the market. Not a bad console, but there are still bugs in the software.
While I was at the board I heard a crash on stage. When I looked up I see Randy the drummer getting up off the floor. It seems the local crew left some sort of rolling stage platform out and Randy didn't see it and tripped. He ended up injuring his right hand. It is mainly his thumb and the hospital didn't find a fracture. He was able to play some of the songs even though he was bandaged up.
The show went fairly well otherwise.
Want to mention there are a couple new guys in the band for the upcoming tour. Greg Suran will be playing guitar. You may have seen Greg play with Jewel recently. He also toured with the Goo Goo Dolls for a couple years. I have actually known Greg for about 12 years. He was the touring guitarist for the band Machines Of Loving Grace who I road managed for several years.
Playing bass on this tour is Eric Holden who plays with the Bo Deans. Of course Randy Cooke is still behind the kit.
We have a couple new crew guys this time out.
Labels: California, Concert, Crew, FFF, Five For Fighting
Peanuts, Pretzels and weary travelers
The next few days will be filled with sleepless nights, tight spaces and smelly people.
I have to fly to Los Angeles tomorrow for a show with Five For Fighting. Yes I know we are still two weeks from the tour starting. On tuesday we will be playing a corporate event, which is actually near Costa Mesa.
These things are always interesting. Sometimes they are just a party thrown by the company. This one is a yearly event I guess, where they give out awards to their employees.
John and the band are the evenings entertainment.
Anyway I get to spend the next couple of days flying from Upstate NY to LA and then back on Wednesday. I will be trying to fly as light as possible, I'm not even going to bring a laptop. LAX is a pain, not so much flying into but flying out of, even before 9/11.
I have been on line moving my seat assignment on the flights. I wish you could select exit rows on line.
The best part of the trip is I get to spend a day and half in some nice weather. Oh yea...I get paid too.
Labels: Airlines, Airports, California, Five For Fighting
An old Five For Fighting photo
I was looking for an computer program that I had. Spent a half hour looking through CD's and no luck. So, I decided to check one of my other computers that I don't use and I found this photo.
Actually found a bunch of old tour photos. This particular one is of Five For Fighting from 2002. I'm not sure what venue, but I think it was one of the many college shows we did that year.
This was back when John would invite fans on stage. Glad he doesn't do that anymore.
Labels: Concert, FFF, Five For Fighting, Lighting
My HOG
I have used many lighting consoles over the years. Back when I started running lights in the early 80's I used a 2 scene LMI console. Then learned the Leprecon family of consoles. Back then these consoles didn't have computers in them like they do today.
The only moving lights and computer console were owned by
VARI-LITE. The company owned everything. They only rented the lights and consoles, which ran on Macintosh software. These guys just celebrated their 25th anniversary last year. Now like all the other lighting manufacturers you can buy their equipment yourself.
Today most of the lighting consoles have a computer processor running inside them. They run moving lights, conventional (lekos, par cans), LED's and even video. The world of lighting has changed dramatically especially the last 10 years or so.
Companies like MA Lighting, Martin and
Flyingpig (Highend) are some of the main companies these days that make them. They even make the lights themselves. The nice thing is that different companies lighting consoles not only run their own lights but other companies as well. Even those VARI-LITES run on these consoles these days.
For this next tour I will be using the
HOG iPC. This will be my first tour with this one. I have used the HOG II series consoles in the past. This newer console uses the HOG III software. It will also run the HOG II software, but the new version has some new features that I eventually want to use. Plus I figured it was a good time to move up being the fact of so few lights that I will be using.
Labels: Concert, Five For Fighting, Lighting, Touring
The work load increases
Just under a month from the first show. I have spent the last 10 days going back and forth with lighting companies. Anytime you do a tour and rent lighting, sound, buses, whatever. You contact several vendors and get the best quote.
Now on this tour we are not carrying full production. What that means is we are traveling with the bands personal equipment, but some limited production. The sound and lighting will be provided by the venue or local production company. Actually 99% of the venues on this tour have in house production.
On this tour, as in the fall, we will be traveling with a monitor system. This is the speaker system that the band uses on stage so that they can hear themselves.
Unlike the last few tours we are going to carry some of our own lights. Just some moving lights which we be on the stage placed around the band gear. If we had the budget I would travel with an additional dozen and fly them over the band.
It's fine since many of the venues have moving lights.
For this tour I had specked out
Martin 250 Entours. When I started getting bids I was offered some brighter lights for the same price from one of the vendors. They are a little bit older as far as technology but will work for this tour. I have used them on several tours over the years.
If I had the budget it would be
Martin 2000 profiles. If you attend a concert in an arena these days, many of the shows are using them. Maybe next time. So I will have my old friends the High End Studio Spot on the road for now.
Labels: Concert, Five For Fighting, High End, Lighting
Coast to Coast
Looks like I will be heading to the west coast a bit sooner than I thought.
The tour is still scheduled to start April 17, of course I will head out before that. I just didn't think it would be this soon. Now I have to fly to LA on April 2nd and do a show with John and the band on April 3rd. This is not a show that is open to the public. It is a corporate show and for whom, I have no idea. It will take place south of LA in Orange County. I spoke to the venue's lighting tech today and I'm waiting on their house plot.
It is going to be a long couple of days. I will return the day after the show. Then turn around about 10 days later and fly back out there again. At least the snow will have stopped by then. We are actually getting another snow storm as I type this here in the Northeast.
The best part of all this flying across the country is the frequent flyer miles adding up nicely. I have almost enough for a trip to Europe. I really should use them to take a vacation to Hawaii.
Labels: Airlines, Five For Fighting, Touring, Tours, Travel
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