Audioslave

I got a call on Friday asking me if I could work today, unfortunately I was only able to work the out due to my day job and not being able to swap days with anyone, but I still got to listen to the show from backstage and do as much work as I could after the show. As a bonus, I managed to snag two of the four setlists on stage (all with the wrong date on them) and two of Tom Morello's picks of the floor. I'm keeping one of each and the other set is being sold on Ebay as we speak. I didn't get to actually see the band perform, but we could hear it all backstage and it sounded like a very good show.
As with the last time I saw them, they incorporated songs not only from their albums, but soem Rage songs, some Soundgarden and Temple of the dog. The set was pretty much the same as it was then, with the exception that they played "Hunger Strike" this time around whereas they didn't last time, so that made me very happy.
On another very fun and exciting note, as we were finishing up backstage, Tim Commerford (bass player for Audioslave) and one of the guys from Seether (one of the opening bands) were throwing a football around, winding down I guess, and almost tripped over some boxes, crashing into us. And then at the very end, while we were standing around waiting to sign out and get our crew t-shirts, the whole band walked past me (3 feet away!!!) and I'm sorry, but I'm still a fan and as professional as I conduct myself, inside I as very excited!

Apocalyptica

Tonight marked the second concert I've paid for since I've been in Seattle. When we found out that Apocalyptica were coming, we just had to go!
We were all set to go and ready to get in when I was made to take off my wallet chain because it could be used as a weapon. Then again, so could my car keys, but I could keep those. So even though spending $15 to go and beat the shit out of someone with a walletchain, is an extremely retarded concept, it did seem nontheless plausible to teh "security" people at the club so we all had to deal with our wallets being more susceptible to theft. That wasn;t as horribly hypocritical and annoying as them denying me entrance to the club with my digital camera because it has recording capabilities. Recording capabilities which consist of 15 second badly lit mpgs with no sound. At the same time others took their more advanced cameras in and a good 30% of teh crowd posessed cellphones with video and sound recording capabilities far superior to that of most digital cameras, let alone my 2 megapixel piece of crap. I stood there and watched al least 3 seperate people recording the entire concert on their cellphones.
Ok, enough ranting, the "security" people at El Corazon will get theirs, in due time!
The show was awesome! I don't know who the opening band was, but they were a little too metal for Amanda, so we sat in the bar until it was time for Apocalyptica to take the stage. It's been 6 years since I've seen them (Dynamo Open Air '99 - in front of 80 000 people, opening up for Metallica) and they've gone through a couple of lineup changes and have added a drummer, but in essence it's still four guys with cellos paying their own brand of heavy metal. They played a lot of their new material, which isn't available in the US yet, interspersed with their Metallica covers which made them famous (Amanda, and I dare say a lot of the other people there, were very amused at the fact that the whole crowd sings along as if they were at a Metallica concert). The evening was mostly Apocalyptica original compositions though, which was very enjoyable, watchign four grown men with no shirts on play cellos while headbanging. They finished their show with a bow before coming back on for a quick encore consisting of "Enter Sandman" and "Hall of the Mountain King".

Crosby, Stills & Nash

I got up nice and early this morning and drove out to Maryhill for day 5 of concertwork, Crosby, Stills & Nash. Collectively I know who they are but can't name a single song to save my life, and as the show went on, that was true, it was ok music, again nothing I would've paid for, but as a freebie definately enjoyable and entertaining. I got showcall for this show too, so in the past week I've worked close to 50 hours now. I only wish I coul ddo this all year round. Come to find out though, it has happened before, that a road crew were so impressed with a stagehand that they've asked him to grab his shit and come along, so who knows, that might happen one day?!





As far as CSN goes, it was interesting seeing their cases with ancient stickers (Lick Bush '88) on them and even more so that they had Savannah, GA and Hilton Head Island, SC stickers, since that's where I came from...
During the show I got to do live backline, which meant that for 3 songs, Frank and I got to carry a keyboard to the front of the stage, plug it in, wit for the song to be over, unplug it and carry it back to the back. So we got to spend the majority of the show on the stage, off to the side, and from there we saw a fight break out in the front rows during the third song. Not really the place I'd expect a fistfight to break out, but it happened and security had to drag 4 people off the premises kicking and screaming. All in all this was a very good weekend, and I got myself a bunch of picks and some setlists.

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers/the Black Crowes day 2

Today started off so good! We had a show last night we didn't have to break down, just cover everything in case it rained. Today we didn't have to get up early, so we just hung out at the campsite, chatting, BBQing and being lazy until some of us had to go start work at 3pm. I use the term "work" very lightly as we just hung out backstage waiting for the show to start. We played some stickball next to the semis, broke our stick, made a new one, broke that and made a third.... some of the guys went for their multi-daily safety meeting and we spent our time people watching as the crowd gathered slowly in the sold out Gorge Ampitheatre.
The Black Crowes put on another great performance tonight, sans Kate Hudson...I will definitely have to see about getting a live album someday.
Tom Petty was a little disappointing as he played the exact same set he did last night (after finding an older setlist stuck to one of the cases it appears he doesn't change it at all) down to the exact same dialogue used to introduce the band at exactly the same point in the show.
I did find out that had this been an indoor show, their lighting setup would've been a lot more impressive than it already is, with a revolving array of video screens that feature members of both the band and the audience.
On the definite upside, I did further build my pick collection and got to grab some setlists while I was at it!
Unfortunately, the out took 3 1/2 hours, when it really didn't need to. We could've had them all out of there in 2 if it wasn't for the fact that this was Tom Petty's last show and they were in no big hurry, which resulted in the roadies not really paying attention to what was going on, and we were stuck listening to one of them up on stage, stinking drunk, gettign pissed off at us for not realizing that he had just changed his mind about what he wanted us to send down to the trucks next.

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers/the Black Crowes day 1

I got showcall at the Gorge for the first time today, and since Tom Petty's playing here again tomorrow night, that means I get showcall again tomorrow too! This weekend will definately be a good weekend resulting in a very nice paycheck!
I didn't find out I was gettign showcall until I got cut for lunch at 1:30 (only showcall people get fed at the Gorge) so I ended up being on the clock from 8 am to 11 pm, when the show ended.
I didn't know the Black Crowes were opening until someone told me a couple of days ago, so this was definately a very nice surprise, especially since they were so good live. I don't know much of their stuff, but I definately have to say that I prefer their live stuff to studio recordings I have heard. As an added bonus, Kate Hudson is here. I knew she's married to the lead singer, but I wasn't expecting her to be here! Of course we're not allowed to approach the celebreties, and I didn't have my camera onme 'cause I actually didn't get a chance to run up to camp except to change into my showblacks, but we did all get to see her up close and personal, dressed, oddly enough, in a very nice red dress (all the other people backstage were dressed very casually, but she obviously dressed up for something!?) This might be because these two nights are the last two for the Crowes with Tom Petty, who is finished with this tour after the Gorge!?
I am actually quite amazed by just how many Tom Petty songs I actually know. I knew about "Free Falling" and "Don't come around here no more" but from his whole set, there were maybe 3 or 4 songs I hadn't heard before. all in all it was a pretty good show, and I got to stand at the top of the ramp and watch it from behind the band but it's still not something I would pay for. Their lighting set up was the nicest and most interesting I've seen all season, and several other stagehands agree with me on that one.

Pearl Jam

Tonight, Pearl Jam played the Gorge the first time in 12 years. Needless to say the concert sold out an hour after the tickets went on sale. 9 000 alone were sold in pre-sale and th epast few weeks, single tickets have been going for as much as $400 on Ebay. Hell, I'm being paid to go to this show, nothing gets better than that!
The show was amazing. It went on for 3 1/2 hours (with intermissions, so about 3 hours total music) and was divided thusly: they played a 45 minute semi-accoustic set followed by an 1 1/2 hour loud rocking set, a 30 minute encore, a 20 2nd minute encore and finally a 10 minute 3rd encore.
It was fun, Eddie Vedder announced that Tom Petty is staying in a hotel up the river and that he could hear us, so we shoudl do everything possible to keep him up. This included Eddie leading the crowd in several chants of "Hello Tom, come down Tom!" throughout the night.In fact, he started off the encore with the announcement that "Tom called and asked us to turn it down" which spawned another round of "Hello Tom, Come down Tom!"
During the second encore, he then screwed up in the middle of "Better Man", tried to rebound but couldn't, so he stopped and proclaimed "this would never happen to Tom Petty, he's a professional, he practices" before he resumed the song. During loud out I ended up finding one of Jeff Ament's bass picks (used from the show) and that started my collection for this weekend (Frank, one of the veteran stagehands here made off with a full set of drumheads they were gonna throw out) I am also very happy that instead of selling the bootlegs of the shows at the venues themselves this time around, Pearl Jam have decided that their fans can download the entire shows for $9.99 a pop at www.pearjam.com and can then burn them to cd as often as they want. If I can get the money together I might even get the whole Tour, who knows!? But for now I am definately downloading this show as soon as I get home next week!