Soooooo now that Denver/Telluride (I just got this cool pic from the Telluride Fest above, enjoy) is out of the way we headed out to good ole California for a few dates. We started in San Diego at a local college which turned out to be a really cool gig. The college radio station aired the show live and had a great stage to work with. When we loaded in there were several students who were instructed to help me setup and shadow what I was doing and how I set my rig up. Thus began my first teaching experience which was awesome considering the guy hasn’t got the chance to work with automated lighting yet. I guess a lot of those cats only get introduced to the traditional theater style with par, ellipsoidal, fresnel, source 4 lighting, etc. So I explain it to the best of my ability and get everything ready. They had a really cool set piece at the back part of the stage which was custom made for the radio station, and they also had a cool “on air” sign that I triggered when I was given the cue that they were going on the airwaves. Another fun thing I used in place of the 8 light moles is the actual house lights over the crowd. They had the house overhead lighting tied into the console so when the band would get the crowd to clap or if there were big hit I’d bump the house light button which lit up over top the whole audience. Quite unorthodox but dammit the idea worked well! 
Next show took place at a club named Anthology. This was a classy yet traditional place for our kind of music. It’s setup like in the old days when you had everyone seated for dinner and a small dance floor was provide for those peps who wanted to boogey. They had some par cans and LED wall lining I got to mess with ran off of an ETC smartfade which was tastefully adding in to the show. The venue also carried a video screen over the stage but I requested it stay off so I could use lighting projection and designs on it which can out really neat. While on the video perspective, Anthology also carried a Sony video system. Whoever performs at the venue is recorded via moving cameras tied in through a joystick remote and mixer to switch from different camera shots which I loved. The more angles the better! After the show they burned us a few copies of the show to DVD and we have a great visual product of the band now. Special thanks to Brad for hooking us up =). 
After San Diego we headed past LA over to the Monterey Jazz Fest (congrats on your 50th year folks). This was another stage that we shared with our Louisiana partners in crime Dumpstafunk. This was a standard 45 minute show with minimal par lighting. So I really tried to get what I could visually out of my rig for this rig but using my moving mirrors on the back drop and emphasizing my LED blocks on shining up on monitors and guitar/bass rigs. I could only set so much up since we were before the headliner that evening. The guys from SIR San Francisco were nice enough to donate a couple road cases to get a few of my moving heads off the ground. Thanks a bunch fellas! So after the Monterey gig we headed to Calypso Bay (pretty much North Lake Tahoe) for yet another throw down with Dumpastafunk in a casino, then over to San Francisco to chill at a Phil Lesh and Friends show, then on over to Florida to throw down in Tampa and Hollywood Beach with Porter-Batiste-Stoltz for a weekend. I will pick up the next blog explaining the Tahoe trip, the good unison and tropical storms we had in Florida. Until then thanks for reading ya’ll!
PS- South Park was amazing this week. 80 Currigs
Song of the week: 311- Guns (are for pussies)
Movie of the week: Gladiator “What we do in life echoes an eternity.”
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