Columbus to Detroit (well Auburn Hills)….

I left the Hotel around 9:30am after knocking on Kim and Joe’s door and saying goodbye. Not sure when I'll see them both again. I’ll see Kim's mum Beth in a couple of days as I'm staying at Beth's mum and dads with Beth in Omaha, Beth flew out there today and will see Kami in Philly in a couple of weeks time. Gonna miss Kim and Joe as we always have a great time hanging out before, at and after the shows.

I had a 4 hour drive up to Detroit and was only going to stop for breakfast on the way up. I was determined to have oatmeal today but again failed when i called into a cracker Barrel and found they stopped serving it at 10am! its like the only thing on the menu that they have a set time they stop serving it and it was now just after 11am! I got a Yoghurt Parfait and some sourdough toast instead which was nearly as good.

I got back on the road and after 5 miles realised id forgotten to fill up with gas, i pulled off at the next exit and drove around for 5 minutes before i found a little gas station in the middle of nowhere. For someone in the US i was probably like a lot of gas stations but for me from England it looked like an old school place with a gas pump that i hadn't seen for years!

     

After handing over $40 to a “good old boy” chewing what was either beef jerky or tobacco in the gas station i headed back towards the highway.

What's the deal with Beef Jerky ? am i missing something good ?

  

Also what's the deal with “grits” ? what's are they and what do they taste like ? Kim mentioned them when we went to Cracker Barrel but they just don't sound nice!

The drive up to Detroit, well actually Auburn Hills which is about 20 miles north of Detroit went without a hitch. I drove passed Detroit which I've never actually been to even though I've been to Auburn Hills twice before. Everyone keep apologizing to me for Detroit! and i have to admit while driving past it didn't look the nicest place I've seen, Everything was abandoned and  disused!

Arriving in Detroit                          Empty buildings                           Gutted tower blocks!

 

I arrived at my hotel around 3pm, took me a little extra time to get here due to stopping for an hour or so for breakfast and the slight detour for Gas. My friend Jeff Post called me while i was on the way and invited me for dinner with him and his wife tonight. As much as i wanted to go i do like my own space sometimes and the nights off i have from the shows and meet ups etc are pretty scarce due to there being a show every odd nice so i politely declined. Hope you understand Jeff, i just like to make the best of the nights off i have and chill out sometimes on my own but thanks ever so much for the offer.

Columbus show…

So back in 1999 i was at this very same venue seeing Roger for the first time from front row dead centre! it was hard to imagine that this was now over 11 years ago!! It was the first time id been back to this venue since then but remember it was a great show, not only because it was my first time seeing Roger but the crowds reaction when he sang the lyric “a farmer in Ohio” in Its A Miracle.

Mike, Hannah and i got into the venue around 6:30 and hung around till the curtains were open so we could head down to the floor around 7pm. We went to look at the merchandise and Mike bought…….well I'm not allowed to say as his wife Kim might be reading this and what happens in the Schott centre stays in the Schott centre:) but suffice to say Hannah came out with a nice new T shirt!!, I'm joking Kim:)

As i mentioned earlier, id spoke to Dave K about Hanna being at the show and texted him to let him know we were here. I heard from Kim and Joe and they had just arrived outside and Kim had managed to get a ticket from a guy in the parking lot and they were heading inside to meet up with us. By the time they got onto the floor Dave was just come out to see us and to meet Hannah.

Dave and Hannah                               Mike, Dave and Hannah                      Kim, Dave and Joe.
   

Dave stayed and chatted to us for a good half hour and gave Hannah and slightly used guitar pick as a souvenir. I cant thank you enough for this Dave and as i know you already know its really appreciated the things you do for us.

Dave then headed back to get changed, Mike and Hanna headed to their seats which were towards the rear of the venue but elevated up in the second section, great seats for their first show!

Kim,Joe and Joes friend Zak were sat 12th row to the right and i was 14th row dead centre on the aisle.We made our way to our seats just as pink was being thrown onstage by the homeless truck driver Brent.

The crowd are always blown away after In The Flesh, there so much going on during that track, The flag holders, the platforms rising, Roger coming out for the first time, the pyros, the plane crashing, its a great opening for the show and leaves the crowd stunned at the end of it.

Tonights plna ecrash

I'm pretty sure its new as I've not seen it at all at any of the other shows but during Another Brick Pt2 there’s a bit of animation that's very clever on the wall. Its of a guys shadow that walks on and spray paints the words “we don't need no education” actually onto the wall at the left hand side. The shadow guy then walks off towards the right side of the wall. I missed the actual spray painting part but caught the shadow walking off on the video clip below:

My friend Bobs idea about the Subway train coming along depending on how many shows are in each city hasn't worked out as at the last couple of shows the trains being coming on twice where there's only once show in each place so I've no idea what governs the amount of times it happens!

The first half was great, as readers of my blog will know I'm a bigger fan of the second half of the show just due to the sheer energy in this half, however the first half is really growing on me de to all the little extras that are being added to the projections.

   

Just before Goodbye Cruel World there's a great bit of projection where lots of random images are projected on the screen is such a fast succession that its difficult to see a lot of them, kinda like subliminal images.What i did tonight was put the camera onto  multi shot and took random pictures at random intervals to see what projection images i would capture. I might start doing this at a few shows to see what i come up with. Here's a few i caught tonight.

   

At intermission Dave came out to chat to Kim and I again while Joe and Zak went off for a beer. I then headed up to have a quick chat with Mike and Hannah to see what they thought of the show. When i got back down to the floor i was standing talkign to Kim and Joe when a guy approached me and asked if i was Simon! We had communicated  about 10 years ago after the 1999 show and although we had never met, Sam had recognized me and wanted to say hello!! It was greta to meet you Sam and thanks for saying hi!

Mike and Hanna at intermission         Myself and Kim at intermission

Everyone stayed standing for Hey You which was unusual but good, if i had my way  i wouldn't let anyone sit down for the whole show!

Comfy Numb was just as good as its always been and is starting to get a touch boring now…… yeh right!! never in a million years would this happen, it just gets better and better the more i see it.

After the instruments rise up through the stage, Roger heads off to change into his uniform for the next part of the show and Jon starts the opening chords to The Show Must Go On however as Jon was playing tonight i could hear the keyboard start cutting in and out like some sort of loose connection, Jon abruptly stopped and the techs came onstage as there was obviously some type of technical problem. After trying for a couple of minutes to get things going again Roger entered from stage left to a huge applause and proceeded to tell everyone that they obviously had some technical issues and the show would be back soon. he also commented that he was just getting changed before he came on and  started messing about with his boots. he then pointed to the white plastic bags that were sticking out of his boots and told the crowd how he needed to put plastic bags over his feet to get the boots on! There was huge laughter from the crowd and grins from Roger, he then shouted out something similar to “are you having fun” to which you can guess what the crowds reaction was! The tech guys had by this time replaced Jon’s keyboard and were obviously re booting the software on the new one which took a minute or two. The whole “incident” lasted probably fifteen minutes in total and just shows that anything can and does go wrong!

The show carried on as normal from this point and Roger then entered the stage at his normal place, one things he has taken to doing at the last few shows is Spitting on the floor after coming onstage at this point! I'm pretty sure this is all part of the fascist act that he’s putting on and he’s not trying to hit a fan again! He also had something over his shoulder as he walked on and this was passed over to Robbie to hold before he took his mic to start singing.

 

At the end of the track Roger  reached over to Robbie and was handed a machine gun!! he has been doing the fake machine gun actions since the 5th or 6th show and this was the first time he had actually used a prop for this.Not only had he got a gun but they now have shooting sound effects coming through the PA as Roger mimics the shooting action!

ROger with machine gun

Instead of asking if there are any Paranoids in the audience, Roger is now adding the name of the city instead, “ are there any paranoids in Columbus tonight” was tonight's phrase, this makes the crowd cheer even more than the normal line and gets a huge response.

They have increased the animation during Run Like Hell and changed the brick animation slightly, It looks a lot better and the bricks now float and roll and fly around the screen a lot more.They have also increased the speed at which the bricks tumble down and go from side to side, this fits the speed of the music much better and makes the music and images gel together even more.

The further back you are for this show the better your pictures will be of the animation on screen during the trial sequence, due to how large the images are and how much light is given off by said images.

   

The wall again fell in the middle only and took a  awhile to fall down tonight.

 

After the band had finished the first art of Outside The Wall roger started to introduce the band and started laughing he said “ i don't know why on earth I'm laughing,i guess its because I'm happy” and he really was! this was a fantastic show and despite the biggest technical issue of the tour so far this was my favourite show of the tour. The crowd were great, the sound and music was spot on, the technical issues and Roger interaction with the crowd all made this a very unique show.

After the show we headed out of the venue and met up again with John. He’s gonna have a special treat for people in a few weeks time but you’ll just have to wait and see exactly what it is! Anyone that owns the DVD from the 1999 show called A Farmer in Ohio should have an idea what to expect!!

As we walked to the car we saw a rickshaw like we all got our picture taken on in Chicago, it was too god an opportunity to miss however the guy taking the picture didn't quite get the idea of what picture we wanted and totally forgot to get the bike in the picture!

Joe and Kim after the show                 My good friend John and I                  Riding the invisible rickshaw!

   

We said Goodbye to John who was driving straight back to Cincinnati and the rest of use headed back to our hotel and couple of drinks later we said our goodnights and hit the bed

More pictures from the show

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