The Stills Day 9, Vegas Baby!

What can you say about Vegas? It’s insane! It’s not quite what I expected though, nowhere near as dense as I thought. Everything is actually quite spread out. The Empire Ballroom, the venue we were playing, is actually right in the middle of the MGM Grand, Monte Carlo, Bellagio, etc… so I did get to see a fair bit. And yes, I did blow the requisite amount in the slot machines. I came out empty handed, but Pat, our new stage tech, walked out with $122. Not bad for 15 mins. work…

 

The show was interesting. Very quiet crowd, but after the set a lot of people were telling the band how much they liked it. I had a bit of a challenge as my mix position was on the second floor, above the sound system, so I couldn’t really hear too clearly, but I’m told it sounded good on the floor, so right on.

 

The other highlight of Vegas was that one of the guys in the band had a hookup for some really nice designer sunglasses. After soundcheck we all went down to the Paul Frank store and we’re now proudly outfitted with PF shades, and I also picked up a watch. Overall, a very good day.

The Stills Day 10, Salt Lake City

Salt Lake City is a pretty cool place. They have a great outdoor mall downtown where I was able to kill a fair bit of time, especially at the Mac Store where I started planning my upcoming conversion to everything Apple. It was a very clean place, but almost too clean, bordering on lifeless, yet beautiful… It’s kind of hard to describe. I guess you could say it all looked manufactured…

 

The show tonight was at In The Venue, a place the guys played just a few months ago. Everyone was happy to see them again, and I think it was in the Top 2 shows so far. The crowd loved it, sounded great, etc… Can’t wait to head back to SLC….

The Stills Day 11, Drive to Denver

Roads in Wyoming are brutal. It’s taking me about 10 times longer than it should to type this. However, the scenery is incredible. Desert-like landscape complemented by snow-capped mountains. It’s been pretty spectacular in that sense. I’ve been taking lots of pictures and I’ll have them up on my site soon. We’re really looking forward to getting to Denver tonight. We’ll be able to relax as there’s no show, and tomorrow we can actually wake up and not have to drive anywhere. That in itself will be amazing. The long after show drives are getting old fast, and the bus can’t get here soon enough. 8 days and counting…

The Stills Day 7, Flagstaff, AZ

Today was the day we had been waiting for since we first saw the tour schedule in August. Today we went to the Grand Canyon, and let me tell you, it was absolutely insane. There is no possible way to describe it to someone; you have to be there. The sheer magnitude of it is incomprehensible, you really feel like an insignificant spec of life.

 

That being said, we had a blast. We did lots of climbing, hiking, picture taking, etc… (I’ll post all 96 pics I took on my site soon). I personally did the stupidest, yet most incredible thing in my life: I lay down on a small ledge that we later found out had an 8000 foot drop straight down (yes, there’s a shot of that…) There’s no way to describe it. The feeling of complete and total fear balanced with a feeling of complete and total freedom. Truly a unique experience.

 

We went back to the hotel after for what turned out to be a great meal at the hotel restaurant, and then polished off a couple bottles of wine. All in all, made for a great day off.

The Stills Day 8, Phoenix, AZ

Well, it’s hard to top the Grand Canyon, but the drive today was beautiful. I’ve never seen anything so incredible while driving down a highway. I had my first encounter with real cactai today, and is was great. You definitely don’t want to prick yourself though… I also learned how to empty a septic tank in an rv… That wasn’t so fun (there’s pics of that experience coming up.)

 

The show tonight was really interesting. The Martini Ranch is a tiny club just outside Phoenix, in Scottsdale, and as such, there was no room on stage for the band, so they had to play an acoustic set. It went over really well, and there was a surprising number of people that actually knew the songs already. It was very cool.

 

After the show we started the drive to Vegas, and we’re staying overnight in Kingman, AZ. Really weird hotel… they have pictures and plaques for all the “famous” people who stayed here over the years. For example, Miss Coors Light Rodeo 1990 stayed in my room at one point. She had realllly bad hair…

The Stills Day 6.5

It’s official. For the first time I have absolutely no idea where we are. We stopped for the night on the drive from Albuquerque to the Grand Canyon and I honestly don’t have a clue where I am. That’s a little freaky to say the least…

 

The Stills Day 6, Albuquerque, NM

162 miles to go til Flagstaff, AZ, or so the sign says. We had a good show tonight at the Sunshine Theater in Albuquerque, NM. Interesting little town. It felt like a live version of a model city, like one you’d build around a model train. Very odd, yet interesting. They have good Thai food there too, for what that’s worth.

 

I got up a bit early today to have a chance to walk around before we did anything. It was fairly uneventful. I ended up having breakfast at the local truck stop/diner. They were showing an NFL game, so that’s all the motivation I needed. Suffice to say I felt out of place. My accent was nowhere near southern enough, and they had a thing about jumping up and screaming at the tv. I stayed for an extra half hour after I was done eating just for the entertainment. Aside from that, a shopping trip to Wal-Mart for supplies was pretty much it.

 

The scenery in New Mexico is incredible. The climate is great. I could be very happy owning a winter ranch there, sitting on the back porch with a beer and a shotgun… well, maybe not the shotgun, but still. The most amazing things are the mountains and that you can actually see the stars at night.

 

First stop tomorrow (or today I guess) is the Grand Canyon. This is touted as being the highlight of the tour. I hope it lives up to all the expectations…

 

The Stills Day 5, Drive to Albuquerque, NM

Overall today was pretty uneventful. Except for the steak house. When we got to Amarillo, TX, we stopped at a place called The Big Texan Steak Ranch. It was special…

 

It was a big yellow building covered in flashing lights. Once you went inside, there was a gift shop, a shooting range and some slot machines. I spent some cash in the machines, made a small fortune (enough to pay for my dinner) only to find out that you can’t cash in the tokens! Gambling is illegal in Texas, so the tokens were for “entertainment purposes only”. Lame, I say, lame! At least I was able to buy a shot glass in the gift shop. It has a grip surface on it so you can never drop a shot.

 

Once you went in the dining room, you were surrounded by a taxidermists dream. Bears, moose, deer, name it. It was stuffed and it was hanging on the wall. Absolutely insane, over the top d√©cor. There was also a trio (bass, fiddle, guitar) that walked table to table playing old style country music for the diners. They took requests and actually weren’t half bad.The dinner was pretty good too. The steak part was anyways… the sides and apps were ok at best.

 

The other main attraction was a table on a riser in the middle of the room that was reserved for the mortal who dared to attempt to eat a 72 oz. steak in under 1 hour in order to earn a free meal. There was one unfortunate soul who tried while we were there, but he gave up after 32 minutes and only half a steak. For the record, I have never seen a steak anywhere near as big as this, and it was a valiant effort. I just don’t think the man knew what he was up against… Oh well…

 

Tomorrow a show at the Sunshine Theater, then drive right after to The Grand Canyon Baby! Oh yeah!

 

The Stills Day 4, Tulsa, OK

Today we woke up in Oklahoma City. I took the chance to check out the memorial from the bombing of the federal building in 1995. It was very nice, very serene. There’s a reflecting pool, the original plaza from the building, a museum, bronze chairs representing the victims and a small bell for every child that died. Along the west wall, there were mementos placed by family members. Everything from ID cards to license plates. Pretty heavy.

 

And sadly, that was the only thing there was too see, and I looked. Long and hard, everywhere I could. All over downtown: dead. Tourist zone: dead. Really bleak. So there’s was no love lost when we left to head to Tulsa, although the chicken gumbo from the night before will remain a highlight of this tour.

 

Tulsa seems to be more interesting, but we really didn’t have time to check it out. We got to town, did the show at Cain’s Ballroom, and we’re at the hotel-du-jour. There were some crazy lighting bolts though. Apparently there was an electrical storm that was hovering all around us for most of the night, but thankfully it never made its way to our little corner of town. There was also a tornado watch.

 

Meanwhile in Chicago, my girlfriend got stuck at school because two tornados touched down and there were warnings for more. I got a voicemail from her saying she had to stay at school and there would be arrangements made for them, I tried calling back but haven’t heard since. And today is our 6^th anniversary. Craziness. I might not sleep too well tonight… Hopefully I’ll get a call or be able to get in touch tomorrow as we drive to Albuquerque…

 

 

 

The Stills Day 3, Oklahoma City

It has been decided by all that Oklahoma City is made by the people, not the place. Believe me, there’s no way it’s the place. The show at the Diamond Ballroom was fine, went really well actually, but the defining moments were definitely after the show.

 

It turns out that the Kings of Leon have lots of family in OKC (as the locals call it…). 10% of the crowd was KoL family. Literally. They had 122 family members on the guest list. And they were cool family members too. After the show, Uncle Chris backed up his brand new pickup beside all the tour buses. To say the man was prepared is an understatement. Flipped down the tailgate, had beer for all, a 6’ table, a couple propane tanks and 3 pressure cookers pre-filled with authentic Louisiana Cajun Chicken Gumbo. It was one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten. Absolutely incredible.

 

As we ate the gumbo, we hung out with all the family folk and met some pretty interesting people, and every single one of them was a great host, very welcoming. There was one man in particular who used to play in a band that backed up Levon Helm, Carl Perkins, etc… been there, done that. He had some pretty good stories. And his daughter makes a killer carrot cake. All in all, it was a really great night, total family bbq style vibe.

 

It was a great way to end the night in OKC, and we’re actually looking forward to going back…

The Stills Day 2, Oklahoma City

Here I sit in Oklahoma City, home of the most diverse terrain in America and a Top 12 US Tourist destination, or so the infomercial tells me… It was a day filled with driving and waiting, aka an off-day. We had to get the generator fixed in the rv after the show at the Meridian in Houston last night, so that took most of the morning and early afternoon, then we drove straight here for the show tomorrow at the Diamond Ballroom. Unfortunately I don’t have any cool road stories for today. No one chased us in a ghetto, everyone’s still alive, though all this could change in an instant once tomorrow rolls around… (insert ominous sound here).

 

In the good news department, I found out today that the rv’s days are numbered. Soon there will be a bus. For those of you that have spent time on the road, I thank you for your sighs of relief, cheers and well-wishing. For those of you that have not had this experience, allow me to say that the difference is incredible. It’s like going from a Chevy Cavalier to a Lamborghini. Life will soon be great. Overall, the rv isn’t that bad… it’s a big step up from a van, has a fridge, spots to sleep, a stove, etc… but once you’ve been on the bus, it’s hard to go back, so this is a very welcome change.

 

All for now, stay tuned for more from the wonderful Oklahoma City on Day 3.

 

The Stills Day 1, Ottawa to Houston

It’s 5:20am. The good news is I got through customs and I am now officially licensed to work in the US of A. Good times. The bad part is that it’s 5:20am. This is more like a bed time for me and I have 7 hours of flights plus a show to do. Oh well, I’m sure it all work out just fine. Nothing a couple double cappuccino’s can’t fix…

 

So now it’s 9am and I just had breakfast in Philadelphia. I ordered a bagel and cream cheese, thinking for some reason that cream cheese in Philly would be special, but I think I just confused it with the actual brand name cream cheese that we all know and may or may not love. Anyways, I got in line for this bagel, and there was no one else there, took 10 seconds to get it, and it was great btw, despite the fact that the cream cheese came in a little creamer style cup and I had to spread it myself… Now the reason I mention this is because I looked around in the food court and it was packed, lineups everywhere else. What were these people buying you ask? I’ll tell you. They were buying chicken burgers and pizza slices. At 8:30am!! And you know what, surprise surprise, most of them were fat. Now with my luck I’ll be stuck between two of them on the way to Houston… time will tell…

 

So at 1pm local time I landed in Houston, TX, after spending the entire flight alone in my row. It was great. I made my way down to the venue to meet everyone with Kings of Leon and hang out til The Stills got to town. The afternoon went by slowly, but all was good. Liam (the keyboardist) and I had dinner at this crazy Asian place called Kim Son about a block from the venue, which was odd because the venue was in the ghetto. It was pretty rough. But the food, spectacular. I could eat there every night, and the menu was definitely big enough to accommodate that.

 

After the fine meal, we went back and put on a rock show that went quite well. The Houstonians seemed to like The Stills. Hung out for a while after, then drove to Waco, TX because there’s a place that will fix the rv generator tomorrow. On the way, we some how ended up in the Waco ghetto and had an interesting experience outside a boarded up gospel church in which the locals were yelling and running after the rv at 3am. Not fun, but we’re sitting safely in our hotel now, and tomorrow we’re off to Oklahoma City…

Does the Travel Ever End??? No.

So I’m sitting on a train, on my way to Montreal from Quebec City, slowly putting the final touches on a week of insane amounts of traveling. It’s all because I took a new job mixing front of house for the biggest little band you’ve never heard of, The Stills. In a 72 hour period last week, I went from Ottawa to Montreal to Ottawa to Chicago to Toronto to Ottawa. Then I had one day in Ottawa, and in the last 48 hours I’ve done Ottawa – Montreal – Quebec City – going to Montreal, then Ottawa late tonight or early tomorrow… I’m a little tired to say the least…

 

It’s been good though, I can’t complain. The guys and their music are great, and we do some really cool shows, like the Osheaga Festival that was in Montreal this past weekend. It was off the charts. The catering was insane – I got custom made pasta sauce while they cooked the pasta in front of me! How often do you get that at a festival? Um, let’s see…. NEVER! There was an open bar, a massage parlour, a coffee bar, an arcade, etc… not to mention that the actual production was top notch. I’d go back in a heartbeat. I’m now waiting for my US work visa to be processed so I can go hook up with the lads on a tour of the southern US, supporting Kings of Leon. With stops in Vegas, LA, San Fran, the Grand Canyon, etc… it promises to be a great little road trip.