Hey, hey the time has come for another blog. I just got done the last part of Bonerama’s east coast tour since the last time I posted. Some interesting developments have happened after the Baltimore show at the 8 x 10. Since I live here in the Baltimore area and we had a few days of down time. I invited a few of the guys from the band to have a couple of beers and talk about some ideas I have for the lighting design in the future. So I pulled my notes and made a master list in chronological order based on what we should move toward first.
The first step is making music stands hip for them can read their sheet music for new songs without having to look at those dull old stands they have to move around all the time. If we get some cool ones made and make them look cool they can be as much apart of the show in my mind it could be a key set piece for the stage, next step is to put in video projection, and build some New Orleans set pieces to help portray the bands roots especially pertaining to their music. All and all it was a good time to sit down and chat. I like coming up with the general vision, but I also like to have the bands feedback to help understand what they’d like to see as well.
Speaking of which another thing the band did recently is review some video from a couple shows this tour. I requested this at the meeting and they were quite responsive toward the idea. I want to do this from time to time to help them actually see what I am going for and get some feedback especially if I am having trouble interpreting a song or looking for an idea that would associate closely with the writer. So goes the old saying “once where I was blind, I can now see.”
After the downtime we headed north to Philadelphia for a small show at the North Star Bar. One side bar and the other side a music venue. It had 300 people capacity and I am pretty sure it was filled to that amount. After Philly it was off to upstate New York to a town named Pittsford where the band did a clinic for high school musicians and then following that they played a conglomerate show with the high school band in their theater. This is great for the kids since the music these guys are playing really shows a young kid hey I don’t have to play the same old standards I’m learning everyday in class I can rock out some Zeppelin or anything else outside the box their learning and I think things like this help shape the young minds of tomorrow to realize there are limitless possibilities to what they can do with music. From a production standpoint, they had crew hired to help with anything we needed especially with gelling par cans while I set up the automated rig which is always a plus for me. After the high school visit it was off to The Big Apple for a two night stand at The Lions Den in Manhattan. There is always a good turnout to see these guys in the city and it rocked. Please, you see:
Well that’s about it for now thanks for reading and I’ll spread some holiday cheer with some shows I have with Earthtone, Basshound, Damn Right, and Porter Batiste Stoltz w/ Gov’t Mule friends. Happy Holidays! ~TOEKNEE
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