http://www.facebook.com/TheRoadieShow

Well, we made it through the dreaded “dance recital season.” I think we did a dozen or so this June and the only thing that made it fun was that Rand & I got to run lights and sound for a few. All that entails is matching the colors to the kids costumes and playing tracks off a CD. Yawn…

We have done a few interesting shows since then, including Stanley Clarke, Weird Al Yankovic, John Hiatt, BB King, Boz Scaggs, and Chris Isaak. All of these were fun and enjoyable shows with musicians and crews we have previously worked with. Stanley Clarke is incredibly talented, friendly, and professional. Plus, he’s a sort-of local hero. Weird Al is an exciting and entertaining show with lots of costume changes, video segments, and top-notch performances. The crew has their shit together big-time, which makes them easy to work with.

The only tough one was Chris Isaak. Our call time was 8am to unload 2 semi’s. The PA was already in house… Don’t take this the wrong way, but it seemed like a lot of stuff to carry and work to do for a one-hit wonder. OUCH!

The rest of our summer consists of reggae, 80’s stars, and smooth jazz. Stay tuned…

Yesterday though, this phenomenon led to a very enjoyable evening. The very talented Neko Case performed as part of Jakob Dylan’s band. After loading out the tour and sound company, we headed to the green room for snacks and beers, as is our nightly custom. It’s what I call ‘post gig mode.’ Neko was in there waiting for a friend to pick her up. The friend was using his GPS to find us, so we knew we were in for a long wait.

What followed was an hour or so of awesome conversation and laughter between our crew of 4 and Neko. She’s a very laid back and funny person and, because Rand and I are so interesting and hilarious, she had a great time hanging out with us. We exchanged road stories and laughed about crazy artist requests. We prepped her for her appearance on Letterman the next night. Rand amazed us with his knowledge of movie and movie star back stories. They are stories only he seems to know…

For any Neko Case fans out there who find themselves wondering, “Is she as cool as she is talented?” the answer is YES. If you can, go check her out on the Jakob Dylan & Three Legs tour.

It’s time to come back.

Keep checking us out here at www.RoadieShow.com.  Let’s get ready to ROCK!!!!

-Rand Bradbury

Chairman and CEO

RoadieShow Enterprises

We started load-in at 10am. Meh. We emptied the sound company truck pretty quickly. They brought a whole bunch of extra speakers to supplement the PA that is already onstage. There are extra subs for the main PA, 2 subs and 2 tops per side as side fills, and lots of LARGE monitor wedges for the band members. The drummer has two wedges…and a sub! We put a bunch of risers together upstage to make one looong riser. Most of the band members go on the riser because Charlie and the show dancers will be downstage. Then the tour’s back line guy showed up. He brought all the instruments, moving lights, wardrobe, and merch.

We wired up all the moving lights, wedges, subs, and side fills and ran all the A/C drops. The tour guys and sound company guys did most of the work after that, although I did climb up into the truss to focus the pars and leko’s.

Next was lunch and the wait for band members to arrive. Once sound check starts, we enjoy some down time. Sound check was extensive today…about 3 hours, I think.

After a delicious dinner, the doors opened. One hour later, Rand and I were ready for our spotlight duties. A comic opened the show, then Charlie Wilson took the stage. The band was a drummer, bassist/synth, 2 guitars, keys, vocals and 4 lovely female dancers. Surprisingly, there was very little feedback from the main vocal mic. We thought for sure it would be a problem because of the wedges and sidefills being so loud. But they had it handled. Nice! Charlie put on a good show with a very energetic ‘party’ vibe. He did NOT, however, perform “You Dropped A Bomb On Me,” but did end the show with his newest hit “There Goes My Baby” twice. Hells yeah.

Charlie Wilson\'s \"There Goes My Baby\"

Load out went pretty smooth. We got the tour’s truck packed up pretty quickly, then got right to the sound truck. We had a few problems with random people walking through the loading area while we were loading the trucks. It was like they didn’t see us pushing all the gear out of the venue and loading it onto the trucks. They just kept meandering around us and all the boxes. Amazing…

We finished at 11:20pm. Not bad. Next up…Chris Isaak.

We have done some cool shows so far this year and met quite a few really cool people. Here are some of the more notable shows:

March: Peking Acrobats, Celtic Tenors, Lucinda Williams, Railroad Earth & New Riders of the Purple Sage, Dave Mason, Duncan Sheik, Beatles tribute “Fab Faux,” Queen tribute “One Night of Queen,” Idina Menzel, David Sanborn, Tower of Power, Tommy Emmanuel, Jay Black & Lesley Gore

April: BB King, Raul Malo, Neko Case, Vienna Teng, Andrew “Dice” Clay, Manhattan Transfer, Chick Corea, Foreigner

May: “RosFest,” Sharon Jones & Dap Kings, UB-40, India.Arie, Spinal Tap, Patrizio Buanne, Bell Biv Devoe, Derek Trucks

June: Steven Wright, Gipsy Kings, Victor Wooten & Stanley Clarke & Marcus Miller, Pink Floyd tribute “The Machine,” Madeline Peyroux, Gary Burton, Kenny G, Wallflowers

We also do some doo-wop shows, some jazz shows, and a whole bunch of dance recitals for local dance schools in the early summer. It’s kinda fun, but mostly a pain in the ass.

Some of the shows we have coming up: The Zombies & The Yardbirds & The Spencer Davis Group, Rosanne Cash, Chris Isaak, Gordon Lightfoot, Peter Frampton…

We have the coolest job!

Times are tough for everyone and the music biz is no different. We just have to hope that things get better with the economy, more musicians go on tour, and people can afford to go out and see a show.

The crowd begs for another encore

This is the kind of show we love to do - easy.  The band plays on nice carpets instead of risers, travels with a bus and trailer instead of a semi-truck…  it’s wonderful.  The audience was thrilled by the performance and demanded several encores! Here’s a look at a few pics from the show. You can always view more of my pics from the music world at the RoadieShow Flickr page!

Graham Nash and David Crosby rock out

The all-important guitar hand-off.  The bread and butter of a guitar tech’s paycheck is earned at this exact moment!

David Crosby waves goodbye after the final encore.  Job well done.

Ok, enough complaining.  On to the update!

Podcamp Philly 2008

Adam, Paul and Rand Host a live episode of the Best Damn Tech Show, Period.

PodCamp Philly is back!  The guys from the Best Damn Tech Show hosted another smash hit live taping.  We drank beer at 3 in the afternoon, discussed news and reviews in the world of tech and made a ton of new friends.  We networked and partied our asses off… Tons of fun!

Kenny G

Kenny G is terribly pleased with himself.

That’s right, folks…  the one and only Kenny G!  Himself!  In the flesh!  Iggs and I walked in to this gig thinking it would be a piece of cake.  In the past few years we’ve worked with all the ‘Big Hitters’ of New Age/Smooth Jazz including John Tesh, Peter White and Rick Braun.  Those gigs were all easy, no-stress events with relaxed performers and happy crews.  Kenny G is a fucking Rock Star!  We built two small towers in the audience for Kenny G to climb and stand on several times throughout the show.  We ran multiple spotlights with several cues while he ran all over the house.  Iggs had to somehow light a tenor saxophone on a stand without spilling any light onto the floor around it.  We built a giant video screen that featured live closeups of Kenny G intercut with text that described to the audience exactly who he was and what he was doing:

“Kenny G holds the World’s Record for the longest note played - 45minutes 12 seconds”

“Kenny G is one of the original investors in the Starbucks coffeeshop chain”

“Kenny G is a pilot and often flies to his own gigs”

If you look to the left of the sleeveless bass player you can see the tenor sax bathed in light

In short, Kenny G knows who Kenny G is.  And he’s a New Age/Smooth Jazz badass.  He never messed up, never had a technical problem, never lost his cool.  He even gave away a saxophone onstage after playing it for the lucky audience member who won the raffle!  That Kenny G is damn good at what he does…

Daryl Hall

Daryl Hall of ‘Hall and Oates’ fame still has the voice and the chops

Daryl Hall came out with a top-notch band, great gear and a HUGE FUCKING WALL that is an exact replica of his barn back home.  Luckily it was mostly made out of foamcore and was relatively easy to construct.  Mr. Hall has a lot more hits than you realize - take a listen to your discography and you’ll be surprised that you know the words to most of his songs.  An entertaining show for sure.

A personal note - My old friend Mutlu opened up for Daryl Hall.  He’s a great musician and has some really cool sounding new material!

Mutlu rocks out with a little help from the keys

A great month of gigs.  More to come!  Stay tuned…

]]> http://roadieshow.com/september-update/feed/