Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band, Feb. 15-16, 2010

Yoko Ono Feb 15, Brooklyn, NY

So after 5 days of being locked up on a rehearsal space, we finally moved into the theater at the Brooklyn Academy of Music today. The last few days have been interesting watching things come together, as a number of the special guests for the show came through to try stuff out, and it was cool to see how some of them worked. Bette Midler is particular is something else. She whipped that band together like nothing I've seen before. No bullshit, to the point, get in get out. It was gold.

Anyways, after all that, here we are. It's a long one today as we're really building the show for the first time, not only on the audio end, but there all kinds of lighting and video as well. It's probably the biggest production I've been a part of. Of course, with all this going on, things feel behind a little bit, and it was a bit stressful because there was a dress rehearsal tonight with an audience. Who bought tickets. Interesting. Whatever, right? It's called a "rehearsal" for a reason... There was lots of stress over it though, some justified, some silly, but what can you do? Sometimes shit happens during a show that you can't prepare for, so you run out and fix it. It's not rocket science. I wish people could chill out a bit more...

And so the show goes on. Oddly enough, everything worked, and thankfully everyone relaxed. It wasn't the full show today though, some guests are only coming in for the "real" show tomorrow. Tonight we had Scissor Sisters, Justin Bond, Sonic Youth, and some of the original Plastic Ono Band. We were all pretty beat, so we got out of there pretty fast afterwards to try and get some sleep before heading back early in the morning.

Feb 16, BKLN, NY

Today is the big one. I came in early to check and re-check everything. It's all going up a notch and I want to be ready for what gets thrown at me. Yesterday was a bit on the intense side, but things will get interesting when Eric Clapton, Paul Simon and Bette Midler come in. I think this might be the biggest lineup I've ever worked with, so it's gotta be good.

With everything in order, we open the flood gates and start an afternoon of random soundchecks. To say this is a technical nightmare is an understatement. I had to pull out some tricks I haven't needed in years. Had to add a console in monitor world as well in order to handle all the extras that kept popping up. All said, it was really cool to see Eric Clapton playing a couple feet away, Paul Simon was amazing (and really short!) and Aaron Ween was a surprise favorite. It's a massive lineup.

We got through the afternoon unscathed and the show starts with a 15min movie, and then it's on. It's in 2 acts, the first is the new Plastic Ono Band playing the new CD, and the second act is all the special guests. So crazy to see all these huge names one after the other. All said, it went pretty smoothly, and it was in no part thanks to the number of house crew we had that were able to run around the stage moving mics, monitors, etc... for us. We were about 30 people working on this production, and we needed every single one. Could've even used more.

Once the show was over we sat around for a couple minutes, packed up our stuff and bailed. We were just too tired to really go out and do anything or go to the afterparty. I'm really looking forward to sleeping tomorrow.