We'll I'm in Denver with a day off after having played at Red Rocks last night... and it's freekin COLD here!!! I'm sitting in the Oxford hotel (5 star!) and they have a dude in a Cadillac Escalade sitting outside on standby who will take you anywhere you need to go. I needed to go to Walgreens so... he took me. Sweet.
My first nervous moment of the tour so far, happened while underneath the Red Rocks stage - there is a tunnel with a bunch of pictures of all the artist who've played there over the years and then a bunch of plaques with the artist and the dates they played. The Jimi Hendrix Experience played there in 1968 and it hit me that I'm gonna be standing right in Noels spot. I had a little moment of "whew... this is for real!"
The shound check started out a little ruff because the lows were very revereberant in my in-ears. Basically I was underwater untill they turned down the sidefills. It's weird that we have in-ears and a back line but they were turning up the sides too.. whatever. They fixed it and my little $275 bass sounded MASSIVE.
I finally had a few extra minutes ( litteraly maybe 2-3 minutes) so I figured I was gonna see if I could get more than just a workable tone out of this amp, so I started messing with it for a second and found a few little treats lurking inside. I got some grit to appear and that felt good. I also dialed in some more mids which gave me some more definition. I was surprised at how loud the amp could get on this stage but I guess the place is known for being a natural ampitheater so the "room" really does aid in projecting the sound from the stage.
They had first class catering for lunch and dinner and you really get a sense of pride and history while at the venue - lotsa pics and vibe.
I'm gonna back track a second here and let you guys know about a series of events that happened at the Wakarusa festival the otherday. You guys might find this entertaining at my expense -
My tech put some electrical tape over the pole pieces of the E string after our second gig ( Dallas?) because I couldn't get the pickup close enough to the strings to give me enough level without the strings hitting the pole pieces of the pickup. That seemed to work so I asked him to put tape over the rest of the strings as well and well, that started a chain reaction that might as well have had me cartwheeling across the stage blowing bubbles wearing a cheetah print onesie.
I should've known something was wrong when I checked my tuning in the 30 seconds prior to started and there was no sound comming out of the bass rig only to look down and realize the tuner was still in active mode... even after I had tapped the switch with my foot ( for the record it's one of those TC electronics guys). So I made the 'helpless hands" raised with shrugged shoulders gesture at the tech and he motions to the tuner and i tap it again and then there was sound. I felt pretty dumb thinking I may not have clicked it off but the first song was starting so I had to move NOW.
I get about half way through the first song and my stinking strap lets go from th e butt end, taking out the cable for my in ears with it so now I'm trying to hold the bass up while playing it without being able to hear while trying to motion to the tech to come rescue me.
He runs over and fiddles for what seemed like forever to get the strap back on and then starts to run off stage again so I'm frantically motioning to him to come back because I've got no ears! He figures out what I'm tryihng to tell him and starts to unweave the little ear cables from the strap ect and plug everything back in and of course when the strap came off initally, it turned down the volume knob on the beltpack so as the tech turned it back up and CRANKED it so now my ears are blowing out of the sides of my head. It gets worse...
So I basically managed to mangle the first couple of songs pretty good missing a few chord changes while holding the bass up ect. but made it into the set still alive and breathing so I figured I'd check my tuning since I had a couple seconds break and yep, sure enough when I went to tap the button to take it out of tuning mode it stuck in the on position. I started stabbing at the thing and then it all of a sudden goes into alternate guitar tuning mode and wont let me out!!!!!! I reached down and the dang foot switch is rolling around in the case. What are the chances!!!!????
The bass is making sound again but not after making me sound like I hiccupped 3.5 bars into the song. Band members are looking at me, the tech is looking at me and I'm looking at the sabotaging tuner. I'm standing in direct sunlight and know with absolute certainty that this thing is gonna need me to check it again before the sets finished but there is NOT A WAY ON EARTH I'm touching that thing ever again!
Anyway at some point I look down and realize that the cable is not tucked into the strap after all the activity we had earlier and eyebrowed to the tech to come over and fix it. I didn't wanna risk accidentally trapping the cord under my foot and having the thing pop out and go BOOM so I motioned (eyebrows) to the tech to come back and "put my seatbelt on" . He was confused, I was confused and again it, took forever but at least I was safe. note; he put it on backwards so the cord was sticking out the front of the bass rather than the back but it was no biggie but at that point and I was in no position to complain.
Postmortum; the TC pedal had lost the little ring that goes around the actual switch, thus allowing it to drop into it's case. The strap initally came off cause my dude didn't check to see if it was fully seated after he connected the bass to the tuner.
Post-postmortum; during the 4th or 5th tune a crazed female came running on stage and bashed into me and grabbed my mic and started to sing! I was blindsided and didn't know what hit me until security came over and pulled her away. Depending on ones perspective, I was either having the best day ever or the worst day ever.
Post-post postmortum; as you can imagine, the tech and I had a 'little discussion' back at the bus that night before our nightcap...
