New Tour Diary - Dallas, Houston & Irvine

[Cour]

Dallas, Houston & Irvine 06/21/2004

June 21, 2004
Dallas, Houston & Irvine

Okay, I’m going to breeze right through Dallas and Houston and do a ten second recap. It’s nothing personal, I’m just a total scatterbrain right now, and I can hardly remember what happened today, so remembering what happened 4 days ago would make my head explode.

We stayed at the most amazing hotel in Dallas...the rooms were absolutely beautiful and it’s made going back to staying at normal hotels a total drag. It was so hot in Dallas that it makes me wonder why anyone would ever want to live there. It’s sweaty and sticky and damp and clammy, it made my hair look like Farrah Fawcet, with the feathered frizzy bangs, and the makeup I put on in the morning slid off my face after being outside for 1.8 seconds. But after I got over the fact that it’s too hot to breathe or think, we had a really good time in Dallas. Tequila. Enough said.

Show was good. To be honest, it was a busy night, it was a hot (HOT) night, and I remember nearly nothing about it. I know that’s terrible, as my job is to try and tell you all the interesting things that happen during the show, but for some reason my brain has just been on autopilot lately. My deepest apologies.

We headed to Houston after load out and guess what? It was even hotter in Houston! Frick. I’m serious, how do people live like this? I know, enough about the weather. Okay...what do I have for you...There was a cat fight in the front row in Houston. Ah, alcohol and attitude problems...always the makings of a good cat fight. They were removed promptly and the show carried on without anyone even really noticing.

Lindsey’s family was in Houston. Three words...Cutest. Baby. Ever. She’s such a little doll, she’s two months old, and this was my first time meeting her, so I was pretty much glued to her every spare second I had. She’s precious. Stevie bought Lindsey’s 4 year old daughter the cutest little ballerina outfit, and within seconds she had it on and ran out on stage to show everyone at soundcheck. The funniest part is that Lindsey and Micks’s kids have to wear these industrial headphones, the kind that airport employee’s wear....so the ballerina outfit looked a little silly with huge bright blue cans on her head. Brett played sweet little dancing ballerina music on the keyboard, and she pranced around on stage until she got pulled so that the work day could actually continue. It’s good to have kids around sometimes, reminds you not to take everything so seriously. Everybody should dance around in a pink tutu every now and then....

Show was good. See above comment about Dallas show. Again, I apologize, I just don’t have the brain power lately!

We flew to Southern California the morning after the Houston gig, and let me just say...it’s good to be back in Cali. Beautiful, comfortable weather, road signs I recognize, and people I haven’t seen in months. Good times. We had two days off before the gig. We went to the mall, we went bowling at the rock n’ bowl, we went and saw a movie (Dodgeball, I highly recommend it, but only if you have a sarcastic, idiotic sense of humor like myself. Nothing funnier than people getting smacked by big inflatable rubber balls, in my opinion...but I digress).

And after all said activities, it was back to work. The LA shows are always a little stressful for us dressing room girls. There’s usually about eleventeen gazillion people at the LA shows, and it’s a little hard to accommodate eleventeen gazillion people, and it ends up getting really crowded and it keeps us super busy. So my blood pressure is just now coming down, 12 hours later.

The crowd was great in Irvine, the first time Lindsey spoke he thanked the crowd for coming and said it’s good to be home. Amen to that. The only problem with the show was that everyone and their mothers were smoking, which isn’t such a big deal, but whenever someone is smoking in the first ten rows, it just goes straight up to the stage and right into Stevie and Lindsey’s faces. Stevie has already made her problem with cigarette smoke very clear, so I spent the show acting as the smoking police. Every time I saw someone smoking I would flash them with a flashlight and if that didn’t work, I’d lean over and tell one of the floor security guards to go make them put it out. It seemed like every time I got someone to put their cig out, two more people lit up. I was flashing that flashlight like it was a disco. I’m going to get myself a uniform and a badge....maybe even a theme song and a sidekick.

Before Landslide Stevie told everyone that Jess, her Dad, drove out from Phoenix with her brother to spend the last month of the tour with us. She said that he’s the same man who sat in their living room in 1968 listening to Lindsey and Stevie sing, and said that they really had something going. LIndsey was smiling and laughing. She said “So he’ll be with us for the rest of tour, and Dad, I can say one thing to you...Let’s roll.” It was great.

After the show in Irvine it took the band a reeeaaaallly long time to get out of there due to the eleventeen gazillion guests I spoke of earlier. We just waited and waited and waited. It kind of got to the point where I was like “Look, I love you, but get OUT!” After twiddling our thumbs for what seemed like 12 hours, they headed out, one by one, we cleared out the dressing rooms and we were on the bus for a quick drive to San Diego.

I’m counting the days until we make it to the Bay Area so that I can sleep in my own bed, drive my own car, and have my Mom make me some home cooked food. I think my Mom reads these, so Mom...get the bacon salad and the orange chicken wings ready...I’ll on my way home.

And on a personal note, while taking advantage of my little tour diary gig...I’d like to wish my Mom a very happy birthday.

Until next time...

CB