wondergirl9847
06-11-2004, 03:49 PM
Hartford & Scranton...again 06/11/2004
June 11, 2004
Hartford & Scranton...again
I regret to say that I really have no idea what Hartford is like. We arrived at 4:30 in the morning, after a two hour drive and after sitting in my room writing the last tour diary until the sun came up, I went to bed around 10AM and slept until 4 in the afternoon. After a shower, a 4 minute walk downtown, and a quick dinner, I headed back to the hotel room for bed. All in all I think I spent two hours outside of my room.
I may not have seen much of Hartford...but I loved Hartford, because it was warm there, and after the raining, freezing cold Jones Beach experience, I was thrilled to no end to wake up the morning of the show to a weather forecast of 93 degrees. And boy howdy, was is hot. I was disappointed when we arrived at the gig because it appeared to be an indoor venue, and I was all dressed for a day outside. But then the entire back end of the building opened up and we were suddenly outside. Presto-chango. That’s a first for me, it was cool.
Mick’s family was in Hartford, his little girls are so cute that you just want to squeeze them. They watched sound check and afterwards Mick sat at his drum kit with one girl on each knee and they banged around on the drums for a while. Cute, cute, cute and more cute.
I have this curse with Stevie’s dressing room that I’d like to complain about. Everybody enjoys a cool, comfortable room, especially when it’s sweltering outside. My problem is this... If it’s really hot out, the whole building will be perfectly air conditioned...All the dressing rooms will be at ridiculously freezing temperatures...except Stevie’s room. Her room will always be uncomfortably warm, and the most painful part is that the building maintenance people never know why. They always tell me that it should be working just fine...yeah, if 83 degrees is what you consider fine. It never fails. Never. I always end up putting her in a dressing room that just won’t cool down. It drives me bonkers. It has become a running joke on the tour. So at about 3:00, we pulled in one of our portable AC units and I spent my afternoon running AC exhaust pipe out of her room. It was an all out war between me, 2 rolls of gaff tape and 40 feet of tubing...In the end I was victorious. Can I get a round of applause for a gloriously chilled dressing room! Yay for me.
I hardly saw the band at all in Hartford, their plane was late getting in, and they left right after the show, straight from the stage to their cars, and it was a busy day for me, I think I exchanged maybe three words with each of them. So no fun stories to tell there...sorry.
We arrived in Scranton, for the second time, around 4AM the next morning. Our day off was beautiful and sunny, but around 7:00 that night it poured. I don’t think I’ve ever seen rain like this, it was raining so hard that it wasn’t even individual rain drops anymore, it was just a huge sheet of water coming down. The skies opened up and let loose. Purple lightning and booming thunder. We took a taxi ride to a Japanese restaurant to have dinner (a very scary, most likely life threatening cab ride, I might add.) We sat at one of those hibachi tables where the chef cooks all your food in front of you. We got the chef drunk on sake and he started to play this little game where he tosses food at you and you try and catch it in your mouth. Alcohol and hibachi tables are a dangerous combination people...
The rain continued into the next morning, although not nearly as bad as the night before. It sprinkled all day and then the instant we get the call that the bands plane has landed and they are 20 minutes from arrival, it starts to pour again. What great timing. So we all stood around with huge umbrellas waiting to keep our rockstars dry as they made the walk from the cars to the dressing rooms. And of course, out of the four cars, Micks pulls up right next to my post, and instead of sheltering Stevie, for instance, who is quite a bit shorter than me, I get to try and keep Mick dry...holding the umbrella 14 feet above my head. It wasn’t pretty. Then John arrived, and he wouldn’t let me walk him in with the umbrella. He said this is just a normal day in England and he’s fine, it’s just rain. I told him it’s no trouble, really...He ran away from the umbrella. So when they were on their way to soundcheck I chased him with it, trying to walk him to the stage. It gave me a good laugh.
Thankfully the rain died down before show time, so at least people up in the lawn seats didn’t get soaking wet. As soon as the rain stopped I went up to concessions right before the show and purchased three funnel cakes (if you don’t know what they are you need to go find out right now...they are one of life’s little treasures.) I gave one cake to our tour manager, but managed to eat the other two pretty much by myself. I didn’t fell well afterwards, to say the least, but it was well worth the tummy ache.
The show was totally on tonight. The crowd was great, and on a lot of the songs you could actually hear them singing along. It takes a lot of people singing for me to be able to hear it over the PA. They were singing so loud on Landslide that I could hardly hear Stevie. She loved it and towards the end was playing conductor to the audience. She dedicated Landslide to a little girl named Ashley. It’s a long story, but she’s a disabled artist who drew an amazing portrait of Stevie. She got to meet Stevie before the show, and Stevie just loved her. Ashley ended up sitting on the speakers for part of the night and both Lindsey and Stevie played to her all night long. She looked like she had the best time ever, it was so sweet. At the end of the show Stevie went over and wrapped the scarf she was wearing around Ashley’s neck. So sweet.
Lindsey dedicated Peacekeeper to Ray, I’m not entirely sure why though. I didn’t see Lindsey after the show, but I’ll have to look in to it for you next time I see him.
Someone threw a beer bottle up on stage and it went right under Stevie’s feet. Call me overprotective, but when that kind of rude stuff happens, I swear I could just jump in the audience and punch someone. Who does that? Ok, it’s lesson time class...if you decide you want to throw something on stage (whether it be an annoying beer bottle or a lovely gift) plan your item toss correctly. Don’t do it when Stevie is walking, wait until she’s stationary. Then you’re really going to want to aim for just the edge of the stage, if it makes it too far back then it’s in the way, and your lovely gesture has now become an annoyance, and it also means that I have stress out and run out there to get it as soon as the song is over. But it’s okay, put me work, I don’t mind.
Two of the items thrown on stage in Scranton were a zebra print cowboy hat and a rainbow feather boa. I’m going to wear them to greet the band as they come in at the next gig. I like trying to make them laugh. Now all I need are fishbowl platforms and some gold spandex...yeah baby!!
See ya’ll in Hershey...
CB
June 11, 2004
Hartford & Scranton...again
I regret to say that I really have no idea what Hartford is like. We arrived at 4:30 in the morning, after a two hour drive and after sitting in my room writing the last tour diary until the sun came up, I went to bed around 10AM and slept until 4 in the afternoon. After a shower, a 4 minute walk downtown, and a quick dinner, I headed back to the hotel room for bed. All in all I think I spent two hours outside of my room.
I may not have seen much of Hartford...but I loved Hartford, because it was warm there, and after the raining, freezing cold Jones Beach experience, I was thrilled to no end to wake up the morning of the show to a weather forecast of 93 degrees. And boy howdy, was is hot. I was disappointed when we arrived at the gig because it appeared to be an indoor venue, and I was all dressed for a day outside. But then the entire back end of the building opened up and we were suddenly outside. Presto-chango. That’s a first for me, it was cool.
Mick’s family was in Hartford, his little girls are so cute that you just want to squeeze them. They watched sound check and afterwards Mick sat at his drum kit with one girl on each knee and they banged around on the drums for a while. Cute, cute, cute and more cute.
I have this curse with Stevie’s dressing room that I’d like to complain about. Everybody enjoys a cool, comfortable room, especially when it’s sweltering outside. My problem is this... If it’s really hot out, the whole building will be perfectly air conditioned...All the dressing rooms will be at ridiculously freezing temperatures...except Stevie’s room. Her room will always be uncomfortably warm, and the most painful part is that the building maintenance people never know why. They always tell me that it should be working just fine...yeah, if 83 degrees is what you consider fine. It never fails. Never. I always end up putting her in a dressing room that just won’t cool down. It drives me bonkers. It has become a running joke on the tour. So at about 3:00, we pulled in one of our portable AC units and I spent my afternoon running AC exhaust pipe out of her room. It was an all out war between me, 2 rolls of gaff tape and 40 feet of tubing...In the end I was victorious. Can I get a round of applause for a gloriously chilled dressing room! Yay for me.
I hardly saw the band at all in Hartford, their plane was late getting in, and they left right after the show, straight from the stage to their cars, and it was a busy day for me, I think I exchanged maybe three words with each of them. So no fun stories to tell there...sorry.
We arrived in Scranton, for the second time, around 4AM the next morning. Our day off was beautiful and sunny, but around 7:00 that night it poured. I don’t think I’ve ever seen rain like this, it was raining so hard that it wasn’t even individual rain drops anymore, it was just a huge sheet of water coming down. The skies opened up and let loose. Purple lightning and booming thunder. We took a taxi ride to a Japanese restaurant to have dinner (a very scary, most likely life threatening cab ride, I might add.) We sat at one of those hibachi tables where the chef cooks all your food in front of you. We got the chef drunk on sake and he started to play this little game where he tosses food at you and you try and catch it in your mouth. Alcohol and hibachi tables are a dangerous combination people...
The rain continued into the next morning, although not nearly as bad as the night before. It sprinkled all day and then the instant we get the call that the bands plane has landed and they are 20 minutes from arrival, it starts to pour again. What great timing. So we all stood around with huge umbrellas waiting to keep our rockstars dry as they made the walk from the cars to the dressing rooms. And of course, out of the four cars, Micks pulls up right next to my post, and instead of sheltering Stevie, for instance, who is quite a bit shorter than me, I get to try and keep Mick dry...holding the umbrella 14 feet above my head. It wasn’t pretty. Then John arrived, and he wouldn’t let me walk him in with the umbrella. He said this is just a normal day in England and he’s fine, it’s just rain. I told him it’s no trouble, really...He ran away from the umbrella. So when they were on their way to soundcheck I chased him with it, trying to walk him to the stage. It gave me a good laugh.
Thankfully the rain died down before show time, so at least people up in the lawn seats didn’t get soaking wet. As soon as the rain stopped I went up to concessions right before the show and purchased three funnel cakes (if you don’t know what they are you need to go find out right now...they are one of life’s little treasures.) I gave one cake to our tour manager, but managed to eat the other two pretty much by myself. I didn’t fell well afterwards, to say the least, but it was well worth the tummy ache.
The show was totally on tonight. The crowd was great, and on a lot of the songs you could actually hear them singing along. It takes a lot of people singing for me to be able to hear it over the PA. They were singing so loud on Landslide that I could hardly hear Stevie. She loved it and towards the end was playing conductor to the audience. She dedicated Landslide to a little girl named Ashley. It’s a long story, but she’s a disabled artist who drew an amazing portrait of Stevie. She got to meet Stevie before the show, and Stevie just loved her. Ashley ended up sitting on the speakers for part of the night and both Lindsey and Stevie played to her all night long. She looked like she had the best time ever, it was so sweet. At the end of the show Stevie went over and wrapped the scarf she was wearing around Ashley’s neck. So sweet.
Lindsey dedicated Peacekeeper to Ray, I’m not entirely sure why though. I didn’t see Lindsey after the show, but I’ll have to look in to it for you next time I see him.
Someone threw a beer bottle up on stage and it went right under Stevie’s feet. Call me overprotective, but when that kind of rude stuff happens, I swear I could just jump in the audience and punch someone. Who does that? Ok, it’s lesson time class...if you decide you want to throw something on stage (whether it be an annoying beer bottle or a lovely gift) plan your item toss correctly. Don’t do it when Stevie is walking, wait until she’s stationary. Then you’re really going to want to aim for just the edge of the stage, if it makes it too far back then it’s in the way, and your lovely gesture has now become an annoyance, and it also means that I have stress out and run out there to get it as soon as the song is over. But it’s okay, put me work, I don’t mind.
Two of the items thrown on stage in Scranton were a zebra print cowboy hat and a rainbow feather boa. I’m going to wear them to greet the band as they come in at the next gig. I like trying to make them laugh. Now all I need are fishbowl platforms and some gold spandex...yeah baby!!
See ya’ll in Hershey...
CB