[amycondit]

Hi Elle & everyone,
I really need to spend more time on The Ledge! I went to all four So. Cal shows, and there was some stress over sound/guitars either from LB or his guitar tech, Stanley & Sound man, William. At Belly UP, LB was glaring at the person in the sound booth asking for "three more wedges" for Bleed to Love Her. Or saying, "this is a softer song" before NGBA. At the Wiltern, since it's not a bar/tavern like place like Belly Up, they had concert hall acoustics. At Coach House sound people were a little stressed and LB's guitar tech said he made a mistake somewhere. Between the first and second song, a song by another artist (!) filtered through the sound system while LB was giving his remarks! He said something to the effect of "I hope this isn't a hint", and "I trust that won't happen again." The crowd was amiable and joked. LB fiddled with the knobs on his Rick Turner during the "I'm So Afraid" early solo after first verse and chorus. I've never seen him do that, and wondered what was going on. Well, at the last show at Thousand Oaks, in a beautiful acoustical concert hall, there were problems at the beginning of "I'm so Afraid." As LB started to strum, he looked behind him, and the guitar tech raced out, and notched up the amp. Then, LB went to the mike stand, looked to the sound booth, looked behind him, and yelled something related to fixing the amp behind him. The guitar tech raced out and tried to fix it, but it wasn't to LB's liking. The two of them stood close together with backs semi-turned form audience. I was in the third row, and saw the concern & heard displeasure. Guitar tech ran back and tried to fix it, and LB said, "Shall we start again?" (I turned my iphone camera on at that point). It was hard to film at that show as the ushers were coming around to tap people on the shoulder. I have more audio than video but I'm thinking of posting it.

All this to say that it seems that there are sound/guitar glitches. As an audience member, I didn't discern anything wrong with the sound, but then again, I don't have the standards or know what to listen for as LB would have it. I hope he wasn't too disappointed with how things sounded. I loved every minute of it. I'm sure it's easy to get frustrated when you're doing many nights in a row of shows. I was just a spectator, and by day four of his shows, I was exhausted from traveling here and there, so I can imagine how he and his team must feel. I feel extremely lucky to have had contact with LB either through handshakes/comments at each of the shows, and will always remember it!