Couple of little things……….

 

Kansas City show:

So Kami and i are sat at the stage right for the first half, there's 4 seats free on the floor the second row right, i ask if she wants to go sit down there. “no I'm fine here i like seeing the show from here and want to get some pictures from here from the second half” she says, so we stay there for the second half. At the end of Waiting For The Worms every night Roger walks off stage right but before doing so he removes his red hammers armband and throws it into the audience who are sat on the right, you know what I'm gonna say don't you? yup the person that caught it was sat right next to the four seats that were free, in fact he lent over to one of the seats that was empty to catch it!!

 

Mark Fisher website, Wall 2010

There's some fascinating pictures here as to how the whole stage is constructed on this current wall tour, really shows you how much work and effort goes into setting this whole thing up by the crew!

Click on the link below.

Stage construction Wall tour 2010

There's some great pictures from the rehearsals at the Izod centre  at the link below:

Wall 2010 rehearsal pictures

 

 

And there's also some great conceptual drawings here at the link below:

Wall 2010 conceptual drawings

New York (again) day 2….

Didn't sleep in too late today but then i didn't sleep too well either, i pulled a muscle in my neck working out i think in Kansas City and its been hurting a bit at nights, its the pillows i think.

I didn't do much (well any) shopping yesterday so headed down to Union Square to have a look round some stores. Remember last time i was here and i put up a picture of the guys painting a forthcoming movie sign on the side of a building wall ? well here it is again! its just over a month since i was here and they have whitewashed it all again and are starting a new one!! crazy! Also passed a Bud Light box throw out in the trash and thought of Kenny's beer wall!

The farmers market was on in Union Square and whilst the sun was out it was still a little chilly so i warmed myself up with a cut of hot cider and wandered around the market. I looked in a few stores, bought a couple of things and then headed to to Noho and Soho, i spent a good couple of hours down there looking at stores and then wandered up to Washington square Park where i called in a  deli and bought lunch (cottage cheese, Eggs, Coleslaw, grapes, mozzarella and tomato!) i then wandered over to the park and ate lunch while sat in the fountain. It had warmed up by now and the park was full of NYU students and business people making the best of the weather while eating lunch.

Washington Square Park                  My Lunch                                        The view while eating lunch

   

After lunch i headed up the lower end of 5th Ave, i walked past a small restaurant with small bench outside, Sat on the bench was a guy dressed in block jeans, black boots, sunglasses and smoking a cigarette, as soon as i saw him i KNEW i had seen him before. I walked straight past and names started coming into my head, Matt Damon, Matt Dillon, and a few others came into my head but i couldn't place the guys name. I turned around after passing him and walked back, taking another glance as i passed, the guy was no more than 4 feet away from me! as i walked past again it dawned on me, it was Brad Pitt!! just as i turned around to walk past for a 3rd time he stood up and headed into a doorway next to the restaurant, Tracie Martyn, it turns out this is a high end anti aging Clinique/ facial place, oh how i laughed at the though of a priceless picture of brad walking out of that place! Had he not have just gone in as i passed by the 3rd time i would have for sure courteously asked him for a picture!

I carried on up 5th Ave to Macys, had a look around and then headed back down towards the apartment. Saw a great t shirt in a store that I'm gonna buy when I'm in Philly as my friend Wendy can get me 30% off, the second i saw it it reminded me of the animation at the bringing of Good Bye Blue Sky! I got back to the apartment around 4:30pm after spending a few more $ on the way! I spent $10 on the following and whilst it didn’t cure my neck it made ait a lot better.

I passed a guy working out on the sidewalk on the way back, he just stood his bike at the side, turned on his ghetto blaster hit the floor doing push ups! New York never ceases to amaze me! I also passed a cake store with some rather odd looking cakes!

Love this T shirt                    $10  worth every cent!         Open air workout!               Frog cakes!

   

Chilled out in the apartment for an hour before brad got home and we left for the drive over to New jersey for the show.

New York (again) day 1..

So after my delayed flight from Baltimore i arrived into Le Guardia at 8:30pm. Took a can straight into the city and got to my friend Brad and Jules's around 9:15, long day travelling and waiting around and i was shattered. I was in bed for 10:30 and had an ok nights sleep.

I woke early and wondered where the hell i was was for the first 15 seconds! i managed to get back to sleep for a couple of hours till 11ish and then got up and showered. Id heard from my friend Ellie yesterday that she could meet up for lunch today so i arranged to meet her where she was working at 1pm.

I walked the twenty some blocks up to 52nd and Broadway calling in a few stores on the way, i didn't have too much time so decided to save the shopping for later on in the afternoon. Had a real nice lunch with Ellie and was great to see here again, it had only been a few weeks since we saw each other out in Long Island for the Nassau shows and previous to that here in NY again for the MSG shows last month. I feel so lucky to have great friends like Ellie. We talked for an hour and a half before she made her way back to the office and i made my way over to fifth avenue. I always get my watched serviced when I'm in NY, the Cartier 5th Ave store is the only Cartier store where you can walk in, wait 5 to 10 minutes, get your watch looked at there and then and be out of the building within 30 minutes at the most.

I headed down 5th Ave towards the apartment with the intention of doing some shopping however i just wasn't in the mood. I walked straight back to the apartment where i stayed for the rest of the day and night.

Its now 10am Wednesday morning, Brad and i are leaving here in the car about 5:30 tonight for the show out at the Izod centre in New Jersey and i AM in a shopping mood today. I'm first gonna  try find an Chinese massage guy as i pulled a muscle in my neck somehow  a couple of days ago in Kansas City and its been hurting ever since, gonna try get it fixed as its driving me nuts at the moment.

Kansas City show….

WOW what a show!! and what an after party!!

We got to the hotel around 5pm, showered, got changed and then headed out to the show. Neither of us had eaten. The venue was in a fantastic  area full of restaurants and bars  and as we walked the few blocks to the hotel we passed a Chipolte! unfortunately the line in the store was real long and there was no way we would be served and be able to eat by the time we had to be in the venue. We went to another restaurant hoping to get served quickly but after waiting a good five minutes and no one coming to take even our drinks order we decided to eat at the venue and head in.

I wasn't actually too hungry to be honest and didn't bother eating but Kami was. Kansas city is known for its BBQ places and i had a few places listed that i had looked up online but we just never got around to finding them let alone eating at them!

Kamis BBQ beef brisket covered hotdog with deep fried Onions!     Various slushy drinks for a buck each!

                                    

We made our way down to the floor, Kami went off to see Dave K and  headed over to see my friend Mark Strand who had been at the four shows previous with us. We had a chat  about how good the previous few shows were as Mark hadn't seen the shows since Chicago and the band were so much tighter now!

I wanted to see the show from the side again tonight so we headed up to the side level next to the stage on the right and took our seats in the second row from the front, behind the yellow tape which separates where the wall fall used to happen!

View from our seats                         Kami and Brent before the show       Brent preparing Pink for the stage!

     

The whole section where we were was pretty empty and one of the security guys came over and told us to sit wherever we wanted in the section, we were perfectly happy so stayed put! The kids during Another Brick were great tonight and really made the best of their time onstage, a lot of them coming out in front of the others and dancing about and doing step dancing. When they exited the stage they stood at the top of the steps waving to the crowd and encouraging them to applause louder, which they did!

   

Kids in Kansas City

I forgot to mention in the St Louis review that during Comfy Numb most of the front half of the crowd were sitting in their seats and during the lyrics “ can you stand up stand up” Roger pointed at the people sitting and motioned for them to stand up!! he didn't do it tonight even though a few of the crowd were still in their seats!

Few random pictures that i took at tonight show from the random images section

      

it was a great first half with no mistake that i noticed at all. Kami stayed in her seat and i ventured down to the floor to see Mark again.

They have shortened the intermission by ten minutes now so the intermission is only 20 minutes in total.

I walked back up to our seats and took my place for the second half, for some reason the section was packed for the second half! not sure what happened  whether they sold some cheap seats at the box office for a cheap price or what but it was pretty much full for the second half.

Robbie has started singing a bit more melody during The Show Must Go On, personally i dont like it but just pointing it out as an observation, he started doing it at the St Loius show and did it at the KC show after that. Looks like its gonna be staying!

       

Roger came onstage in his usual leather jacket and black biker boots, saluted Robbie, wagged his finger for Roger to follow him and then made his way to the podium in front of the mic stand. he pointed to his mic and Robbie handed it to him, he also pointed to the machine gun on the floor and Robbie picked it up and put it over his shoulder.

Roger took the machine gun from Robbie at the end of In The Flesh and started to shoot into the audience, its changed slightly in that he fires a few shots, moves around then fires a few more and then does it again, i think it works better than doing the whole sweep around in one shoot! After he fired the gun he took his mic and said “so how many did i get?” and then grinned.

Roger again got a little confused between the microphone and the megaphone that he talks though during Waiting For The Worms and sang into the megaphone instead of the mic towards the end but made a quick recovery!

During Nobody Home roger held out the mic for the crowd to sing into but held it out at the wrong time and the crowd singing “on the TV to Choose from” was heard back! he still thanks the crowd though.

Roger during Comfy Numb

     

Shadow Dave playing Comfy Numb         

The wall ell good  and in a couple of large pieces but the sides are still not falling, all the people that saw the shows earlier on in the tour really got to see something that will probably not be seen again!!

More pics of the Kansas City show

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So after the show we headed out to the outdoor plaza that we had walked through earlier, the place was absolutely packed with people dressed in Halloween costumes! Its not really a celebrated holiday in the UK and while a few kids dress up in costumes there's not many adults do and certainly nowhere near as many as here in the US! In fact we had seen people in costumes at the shows for the last 3 nights!! no one blinks an eye its just normal to see witches, sailors, wizards and zombies at a show!

Few Halloween pics

     

This was a costume!

        

This was THE best costume I've ever seen!! this was just one guy as well.

We stayed at the plaza for a good hour just leaning over the balcony and picking out all the different costumes, I'm sure kami will comment and say how much i enjoyed it, i really had seen nothing like it and couldn't believe how many people actually join in!

Halloween dancing

There was a costume competition at midnight but we left around 15 to midnight so missed it, we did hear the next day that a guy dressed as the invisible man won it!!

Halloween pictures:

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St Louis show…..

After having dinner with Chris and heading into the venue Kami and i again both sat with Dave K, had a chat and i then left her to find my friend Chris and his dad. They were about 15th Row dead centre and Chris hadn't seen the show since Chicago, his dad and two friends hadn't seen the show at al yet so i was looking forward to hearing what they thought of it after.

I like Chris a lot, he's a great guy and we always have a laugh whenever we meet up, earlier tonight had been no exception when we were talking about tattoos and his Wal-Mart obsession! He asked earlier if i was able to get a picture of him, his dad and his friends with Dave K, i said id see what i could do and just before Dave went back to the dressing room to get ready for the show i was able to get the following:)

Chris and i at the show                               Bobs, John, Ted, Dave K and Chris

  

Kami and i were on the end of the 14th row,  the guy next to us actually gave us tickets for the seats!! he was a friend of one of the truck drivers and had being given four comp tickets to the show but there was only himself and his friend so he gave us the remaining two tickets  so we could sit in the middle of the row together! I was beside myself that someone whom we’d never met would do such a thing, i offered to buy them a beer but they were fine and politely turned the offer down. We chatted a bit before the show and  Kami and i agreed it was just Karma coming around and we had to do something to help someone to keep the karma going later on. When i met kami in Baltimore yesterday she told me she had been sat next to a girl whom had just broken up with her boyfriend and wasn't too secure with her travel plans in Chicago and wasn't sure where to go, Kami actually walked over from her terminal to terminal F with her to make sure she was ok with where she was going, She then walked all the way back to her terminal for her flight, that's Karma being returned i thought to myself :)

The show was great tonight, the band were tight the sound was good and the atmosphere was just how it should be. The crowd were up and down a touch early on but stood mainly for most of the show which i was glad about.

   

I headed back to have a quick chat with Chris at the intermission and then returned to my seat for the second half.

These are the random pictures i took from the flashing images on screen tonight, again they came out pretty well!

     

Dave Comfy Numb solo just doesn't falter now night after night, its hard to even pick a single flaw up in the shows from the last couple of weeks even!

The wall fall was pretty good tonight, Kami and i both felt the wave of wind brush past about 5 seconds after it fell, the crowd goes wild when they see the wall falls, I'm pretty sure even though most of the crowd are aware of the wall  music not many of them know about the production of the wall and how the wall actually comes down at the shows until it actually happens!n Its always great to watch peoples faces at this point in the show.

   

We stayed in our seats tonight for outside the wall but could still see the facial expressions of the band and were still able to see how much fin they had had and were having y the looks they gave each other.

After the show we made our way back to the hotel, we followed a guy dressed in Floyd clothes and wearing a plastic wall mask, it made me laugh seeing him just walking along as normal texting on his phone with not a care in the world! not only did we follow the guy back to our hotel where he was obviously staying ut noticed he was also staying on the same floor and corridor as us  and then in the room directly across!!

   

We headed to the bar  and Kami went to chat to her boyfriend on Skype for a while, most of the hotels I've been in have wireless in the room but the the hotels out in the Midwest don't seem to have great internet connections and the hotel in St Louis only had wireless in the hotel lobby which made things a touch difficult having to go down to the lobby to check things out on the laptop. Kami came back and joined Chris and the guys later on and ordered a tequila shot and a glass of ice water. I came back from the bar with what was the biggest shot I've ever seen, in fact I'm sure everything thought it was the glass of ice water there was that much of it!!               

Post Tequila shot!                                   The first Tequila shot!

 

Not content with one she ordered another but i think that was the max! I'm pretty sure drinking those two shots was the equivalent of like 6 regular shots! i had a couple of Long Islands which made a change! i hadn't had one for a few weeks, they weren't the best but they were ok. We all then called it a night, i said my goodbyes to Chris, Ted, John and Bobs and made my way up to bed.

St Louis show pics:

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