02 May. House of Blues, Cleveland, Ohio
The venue was the Cleveland 'House of Blues'. This is a chain and on previous US tours with Steven we played a few of these - LA, Dallas and Orlando come to mind. Many years ago I played at the one in Harvard Square, Boston with the band Gong, and I remember seeing Dan Aykroyd there chatting to someone. I think that was actually the original one and he started the chain with John Belushi and others. These venues are nicely laid out and the facilities are usually pretty good. This one was no exception.
So the Soundcheck-After-Day-Off (SADO?) was again a good one. After the usual checks of the system, equipment and monitors, we launched into an instrumental jam that was pretty happening. Definitely musically a notch up from previous ones. Mainly open improvs with grooves and there was one piece that referenced Miles' track Tutu. Adam was of course on that original album. There was an electric Miles vibe to some other parts, and overall some good music was made, methinks. Much fun too.
The gig was not till 9pm so there was a long gap after the soundcheck. We ordered dinner to be delivered backstage and I ordered a Buttermilk Grilled Chicken which was so ridiculously large I barely managed to eat half of it before feeling totally stuffed. Marco has a USB memory stick full of Hitchcock movies, so I took the opportunity to watch on the bus 'Frenzy' which I had not seen. It is a classic Hitchcock film from 1972 and very much a London film, made largely around Covent Garden when it was still a fruit and veg market. It was Hitchcock's first film back in
London after having filmed many in America and great to see Covent Garden and central London as it was in 1972. Interestingly, the directors own father had worked in that market and Hitchcock wanted to capture film of the market as a working fruit and veg market before that was all transferred elsewhere, which happened in 1974. It is about a serial killer and is a thriller. A great film - I enjoyed it very much.
The gig itself was good. A very enthusiastic audience verging on rowdy at times, and in fact Steven did say at one point "Are you listening to me?" as a few members of the audience seemed to be going over the top. However when Steven asked for quiet for the opening section of the song 'Raider 2' which has long quiet pauses in, the audience was completely silent. I was impressed. We played the slightly different set to the night before as there were fans that were attending both shows. Afterwards a few of us went out to the merch' table to autograph CDs etc and shake some hands.
Then onto the bus for the overnight drive to Chicago. The bus has two lounges both with TV and DVD players, a bathroom, small kitchen with sink, fridge, freezer, microwave and kettle, lots of storage and also comfy seats/sofas and twelve bunks which are not huge but comfortable. Each bunk has a curtain for privacy. I sleep fine on the bus and it makes complete sense to tour like this, doing the big drives while we sleep. I took a photo to let you have a peek into our private bus world.
We rolled into a rainy Chicago this morning for our first time zone change of the tour. Clocks one hour back. The venue is Park West and is another good one. Should be fun tonight. Theo Travis
