The Roadie Show

We just finished a week-long stint with those badass
Chinese kids, the Peking Acrobats. What fun! Iggs and I look forward
to this gig every year. The acrobats speak very little english, so
communicating very simple bits of info always turns into an
entertaining game of charades. A few tips just in case you run into or
work with Chinese acrobats:

Eat your food before they see it! These kids get little time to eat and will consume almost anything in sight.
Avoid looking at the half naked girls doing splits in front of you. These kids are teenagers at the oldest, you perv!

Don’t worry when the 13 year-old girl stumbles and falls off of the
3-story human pyramid and lands on her head; she’s trained to hold in
the pain until after the show.

technorati tags:chinese, acrobats, music, live, performance, stage, show, roadie, rand, iggs, blues, drums, guitar, bass, keys

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Hey everybody…

I’m in the midst of working for 2 days with 4 bands I might not have had the chance to check out if it weren’t for this job. On Thursday, March 8, Rand and I worked with Los Lobos and Taj Mahal. What a great show. Los Lobos was a few hours late, but their crew guys are very cool and are all about making things easy for everybody. So we got them up and running with very little hassle. The one thing I kept wondering about was why a band who travels with 30 or so guitars would not bring ANY guitar stands. ??? They have that huge acoustic bass (called a guitaron) that doesn’t fit into a standard guitar stand. Shouldn’t they have a custom stand? At one point in the show the guitaron actually fell from the stand it was in, but was caught in the nick of time by Caesar, Los Lobos’ lead singer. Nice!

Taj Mahal opened the show and got everybody rockin.’ He is a great singer and musician and his band members were very friendly and accomodating. Taj joined Los Lobos onstage for the last few songs of their set and really brought the house down. I feel lucky to have had the chance to work with these top-notch musicians.

On Friday March 9th I worked with America and Christopher Cross. As I type this, I’m listening to America soundcheck. They’re better than ever. Again, the crew was friendly and all about making it easy and keeping it simple. They are true professionals. Our load in went smoothly and quickly…just the way we like it.

Hey there…

Some of the other gigs Rand and I have worked recently were kind of interesting. We started the season with an Elvis Presley Birthday Bash. Two Elvis impersonators performed. The first half of the show featured “young Elvis” (Scott Bruce) who performed the early hits we all know and love. Check our setlist section (when you see a link here). The second half saw “Vegas Elvis” (Mike Albert) hit the stage. Damn! He was good. That guy sang his ass off.

We had a nice weekend to start February with David Bromberg on Friday and Dr. John on Saturday. Fans of these artists will know why this was a cool weekend for us. These guys have been doing what they do for a long time. If you’re unfamiliar, check out their websites and give a listen if you like.

Beatles tribute “1964: The Tribute” did two nights. For roadies and others in the industry, this is happily referred to as a “walk away.” That means that because the band has booked 2 nights at the same venue, there is no load-out after the show on the first night. We all appreciate the walk away because it means we can leave right after the show and actually have a social life for a night. Whether it’s home to the wife and kids or right to the tittie bar, we all make the best of it.

Have you heard of “School of Rock?” No, not the movie. The actual school of rock. A bunch of students learned a bunch of “Yes” songs and played a concert. Plus, they got Jon Anderson to sing them. That’s not something you see every day.

We’re anxious to continue a year filled with all kinds of music, as well as other entertaining acts. Stay tuned!