Pittsburgh to Cleveland drive……

The weather was crappy today, rain cloud fog and cold! I put some laundry in at the hotel about 8am and had it all washed and dried by 9! Went for a bit of breakfast at the hotel and the set off to head up to Cleveland.

Venue from the hotel window on a wet and cold morning.

Jens, Maria, Lars and Thomas were driving up to see the Amish people in Millersburg, i was driving up to have lunch with Michael and Suzanne, about an hours drive north on the way to Cleveland.

The drive up took me about an hour and we went to a local country club near Michaels office for lunch, i had a great BLT sandwich and really enjoyed being able to have a chat without the noise of the meet up places that we had only had chance so far to chat in. I wanted to see Michaels kids as i hadn't seen them in a few years but it would be 4pm before they were out of school and i wanted to get up to Cleveland early in the afternoon to be able to chill out and use the gym and pool.

I got to the hotel around 3:30, pretty uneventful drive and the weather in Cleveland was just as bad (if not worse) as it was when i left Pittsburgh. Passed a few nice cars as i was driving up, only managed to get a shot of one though.

      

I’d had a couple of texts from Maria saying they had left Pittsburgh around 12 and were on there way to Millersburg, however at the moment they were lost! The GPS had lost signal, they had no maps and had no idea where they were. Maria said she was loving it and it made the trip even better.

I used the Gym in the hotel and did some cardio work for 45 minutes, then went and had a swim in the pool for half an hour. I hadn't run or done anything for the last 3 or 4 days and the food I'd been eating was totally the opposite of the type of food i usually eat at home. I more or less eat 100% low fat food and the stuff i had been eating the last week or so just wasn't agreeing with me at all. I felt so much better after a workout.

Maria called again to say they were lost for a second time and they were trying to find the Amish restaurant, they also decided to drive to Cleveland after their meal and stay at the hotel here. I got a rollaway bed delivered to the room and enquired about another room for Maria. They weren't sold out and there were plenty of rooms available.

They all arrived around 10pm and after checking in we sat at the bar till about 12:30, relaxed, ad a couple of drinks and headed straight to bed.

The Pittsburgh show…

We all agreed that to say this is a new venue the organisation sucked! it had the longest 15 minute line for Will Call, getting onto the floor was a complete nightmare as the place to get to the floor and the place to get to the first level seats was the same!! The bathrooms sucked and there were no where near enough of them! Its only been open three weeks and hosted 3 shows so far. You would have thought someone would have put some thought into designing  a venue and looked at the problems that other venues have (or don't have compared to this!)
Maria and i were front row right, Jens was second row centre and Joe and Lars were somewhere in the middle. The venue inside was just like any other venue to be honest. The stage looked a little wider due to the width of the venue and I'm pretty sure the wall was a touch wider too.
    
There were a couple of mistakes early on in the show, the plane coming down into the wall was late and |Roger missed a couple of lines on Don't Leave Me Now. one thing that was noticeably good was the sound! it was incredible, probably the best of any of the shows so far!
As much as i love leaning on the rail for the show i do think its a bit too near to really enjoy the show, in fact the constant looking up and projections being so close gave me a headache! Its nice on the rail once every few shows and to see the bands faces etc but i really feel the ideal place is about 2oth row either right left or centre on the floor or about half way back on the first level around the floor.
 
I wasn't at the 4th Chicago show but the others had said the wall falling was the best yet and nearly all of it fell forward into the audience! Security came round half way through the second half just asking those people on the rail to move back and take a seat as the wall was about to come down. It did, but it wasn't as bad as they were expecting.
First brick starts to tumble:
   

It was nice to see Dave K and Harry (both who pointed and acknowledged us)and it was nice to see the band playing Outside The Wall real close up.

        
After the show we headed over to the Marriot hotel and met up with Michael and Suzanne and all the superlatives were used yet again!
Suzanne & Michael after the show    Lars, Maria and Jens after the show   Joe and I
 

More pics from the gig (thanks to Jens for some of these):

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Jens and his bricks!

So Jens seems to have this obsession with the bricks, he wants his picture with them, he’s been spotted caressing them before and after the shows and i have visions of one night coming back to the hotel and him having one in his bed!

Last night he was able to have his picture taken with several bricks and even has a memento to remind him or his love affair!!

   

 

Jens and the homeless guy….

So 15 minutes before the show starts there's a homeless guy with a shopping cart wandering around the floor with a security guy moving him on. At the first show in Toronto myself and Michael though tthe guy had somehow got in the venue and was being ushered out. It soon became clear that this was all part of the pre show entertainment! only Roger could think of something like this! The guy comes out around 8pm at every show, same guy, same cart but different sign on his placard. Jens had his picture taken with the guy on the first night and tipped him $1, he has a cup to collect the money in which Jens later found out is all going to charity!

The guy now recognises Jens and has a laugh and a joke with him at every show, Jens tips him every time and even got to pose with his cart!