Sola tour 2007: Rehearsals Day 1

22:15 – So, after a loooong day of hard work I’m home again. This morning we started building all the backline and the monitorsystem. We where busy with tweaking and fine-tuning until 15:00 pppffff… and then played through the set ones, and had a very nice diner. Shoarma!!!! YEAH! In the evening we played through the encore and worked on some specific points. But what a set, it is really great! We are now at our home, the whole band (except Neal) is sleeping at our house. They are now having a vocal-rehearsal and it is 22:45 already (!!). They really work hard! What an honour to work with these musicians.
With this tour, I am using a in-ear monitorsystem by Aviom. A real treat! I can make my own mix with 16 channels of audio, and with some subgroups mixed by Wilco, our monitorguy I have a wonderful mix of all the 40 channels of audio. So it sounds really good.
In Januari I ordered a new drumkit, a Tama Starclassic Maple. So they custom made it for me. It was suppost to arrive in the first week of May, but due to several external difficulties (customs etc) it is still in the docks of Rotterdam. So unfortunately I had to play on another kit. The people from Hoshino Benelux (Tama) where so kind to lend me their endorserkit. This kit was recently used by Rodney Holmes and Harvey Mason. A 6-piece Tama Starclassic Bubinga in a very 70ties style colour: Violet Sparkle. They added a 8” maple tom, as I am using a 7-piece kit.I will make some pictures tomorrow. It sounds great. Bubinga has some deep low-end. Wait till you hear those floortoms… oempf. Somewhere this week I will make a movie of my drumkit, as I have a lot of new things and gimmicks. Really cool!
The soundguys really do a great job. The know what they do, and it is sounding great!
Tomorrow Neal will arrive, and will join us with the rehearsals. As soon as I have some footage, I’ll try to put it up here, but time is limited. We are rehearsing from 10 am to 10 pm every day…. Hopefully I will have some time left somewhere to make and edit a short clip of the rehearsals.
Neal will bring the new liveCD Neal Morse – ? Live! A double live CD we recorded during the Question Mark tour last summer in Columbia Club, Berlin. Neal says it is really good, and sounding great. I can’t wait!
This CD will be sold at the gigs, so be sure to check it out!
Okay, tomorrow a new update! Cya!