Transatlantic Whirld Tour 2010 (7) - San Francisco

Today we got to fly to San Francisco for the second gig of the Whirld Tour. A beautiful city, but I only have seen a few parts of it during transit from airport to the venue. When we came in, the sound system was all in place, backline delivered – this looked like an easy gig.  The Palace Of Fine Arts is a beautiful theatre situated in the ruins of a semi-old building (there are no real old buildings in the US of course, let alone one that could have been in Rome). Looking good though. I quickly set up my mobile office, and arranged the dressing rooms, made the guest lists, press material, arranged the interviews, backstage passes, press passes, overseeing that the time schedules will be met, fighting with the Union guy in getting more time for soundcheck, ordered food for after the show, and in between advanced some of the coming gigs. In the meantime the band was soundchecking an they sounded good. The hours before the gig are the most busy hours of the day – getting all in place so that the guys can shine on stage. The best moment of my day is the moment where the intro tape ends, and the first chords are being struck – and the venue fills up with music. That’s where it’s all about. Music! And not just some music, but this is definitely the proggiest happening that is around. Having all these amazing players come together and seeing the effects in the faces of the audience of this synergy of combining talents is just amazing.
The gig went really well. While the band played their second gig of this tour, I was back in my office, working on the settlement/accounting, advancing shows, rebooking some flight tickets, arranging some changes in crew etc.
Yes, rearranging the crewmembers. Why? Unfortunately due to the volcanic ashes in the air Yenz Nyholm (lighting guy) and Ruben Schuring, our merchandiser are stuck in Europe and is not be able to come for this first part of the US tour. We all are very sad about this, but what can you do… We have to make the best of it. So Pam, a woman from CalProg (the promoter of the first gig in Downey CA) who has been directing the lights for our first show (and has done many other CalProg shows) will be joining us until Yenz can make it over here. Todd, a good friend of Neal will help us out in the merch side, so we are covered at all sides. So I was almost the whole gig busy with rebooking tickets and preparing so that they could join us.
After the gig some of us had some killer Chinese food and after a long but fulfilling day at 03:00 am I finally went to bed.
Tomorrow we will fly to Chicago where we will have the night off. I think I will go to bed early – and won’t join in the Chicago sightseeing, restaurants and going out. Next time Chicago, next time 😉
Trusten!! (Dutch slang for ‘good night’)
Collin