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Saturday, 19 December 2009 00:00 |
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Greeting humans and welcome to the final installment of my tour blog. Sit back and enjoy...
 Shows #18 & 19 - Davenport, Iowa and Fargo, North Dakota
Both of these gigs were similar in many ways - The performances were very solid and without incident, which is always nice :-) also, to my great joy, the temperature has now become very cold (between 5-10 degrees) yet still no snow!!!! This would change soon enough, as the Doppler shows that Fargo would indeed have snow. Hey, its the Holiday season and I live in Atlanta, so give me a break here!!! :-)
Show #20 Billings, Montana
I wake up early to finally see some snow and ICE COLD temperatures - Cold enough to freeze your face inside off!!! (be careful what you wish for, I suppose) Anyways, this would be the 3rd show in a row in a state I have yet to perform in, and once again after the shows crown reaction (they went NUTS) I do wonder why we have not been here in a while??!! We certainly will be back at some point to these places and look forward to doing so, I must say. Good show, good crowd, good night!!!
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Monday, 07 December 2009 00:00 |
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 Like a horror movie sequel, here we are back once again for the fun filled blastorama that is my tour blog. Part 3. Get the popcorn ready, cause here we go.
Shows #12 & 13 - Corpus Christi and San Antonio, Texas
So, we arrive in Texas and its friggin' COLD!!! I of course, being a frost bitten Canadian boy, don't mind it too much, even though both Corpus Christi and San Antonio are both outdoor gigs. We plow through them both and despite the cold, I really enjoyed both shows. San Antonio was also plagued with rain all day to the point of us pondering If we could even do the show. The rain subsided around 6PM. Big kudos's to our crew for literally "weathering the storm" on this gig.
Show #14 - Dallas, Texas
Dallas always seems to be a great gig for me, and this time was no exception. Great crowd as always here, so with a smile on my face, I quickly get to my bunk and some much needed shut-eye en route to the Oklahoma City.
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Monday, 30 November 2009 00:00 |
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 Greeting's humanoids and welcome back to part 2 of my 4 week American Tour blog, as we pick up right where we left off...
Show #6 - Richmond, Virginia
Nice Theatre, good acoustics, which is always beneficial for me. Pretty solid show all around, really. We have now added a new tune called "44 Minutes" into our set list, which makes me happy. For me, it's real important to play 3-4 tunes from a new record, though with each release it really is becoming so hard to pick the proper set list for both the fans and ourselves too. With about 150 songs or so in Megadeth's catalogue, it's pretty much impossible at this point to make everybody happy with the songs in the set, and that's even with us mixing up a few tunes almost every night.
With that said, we also have to make ourselves happy with the tunes we pick, and we are pretty happy with how the set lists are shaping up.
Show #7 - Knoxville, Tennessee
I have yet to play in Tennessee, so this gig was fun for me. Add to this both of my kids showed up to visit me from Atlanta, which of course made my day that much better. We added another new tune from Endgame entitled "Dialectic chaos" which really went over well with the crowd, and with the band.
My back pain returned a bit, which is unfortunate, but that's rock n' roll, I suppose. Nothing a good massage won't cure, so I inform Andre to set that up for our next day off in Florida. I can deal with this for 2 more shows... I hope.
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Monday, 23 November 2009 14:53 |
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 Starting a North American tour is always an exciting thing for me. I have toured around the globe many times now with Megadeth, and while it's all great for different reasons (and I do love all of it), touring in North America makes me feel a bit more comfortable in certain ways. I enjoy being on a tour bus quite a bit, as really it is our "home away from home" and with the fall season here, that means I can watch NFL football - Always an important thing for me :) Anyways, enough of that. Here is a small glimpse at my life on the road.
Show #1 - Grand Rapids, MIchigan
For a 1st show, it really did go quite well. More often than not, the 1st show can be met with technical issue's, from the crew getting acclimated to new equipment, etc. and just the stress of having to get it all sorted out in time for the show (Add 3 more bands to this, as this is a 4 band tour package) Needless to say here, we had a great crew and they pulled it off without a hitch. I had a minor issue with my left kickdrum pedal, which seemed to be a bit "off" from my right pedal, so I found myself fighting with it a bit in certain songs. Turns out I was correct in this assumption, as when I expressed this to my drumtech "BIG" Nick Grayson, turns out that the position of the beater was not synched up to the other one. Doh! This was of course fixed for our show the next day in Peoria, IL.
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Thursday, 22 October 2009 00:00 |
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“Skeletons in the Closet Tour 2009” - October 22nd, Iowa City, Iowa
By: Derrick Nau of Skeletonwitch
Colorado Springs to Iowa City is a long drive. We had a day off yesterday and I think we spent around 11 hours in the van. That was kind of rough. I drained the battery on every gadget I have with me to pass the time and still had about an hour and a half to two left in the drive. The last leg of a long drive can be very tedious.
Once we stopped, we did get a huge Papa John’s pizza feast and watched Footloose so the day wasn’t all bad. I think I ate a couple pieces and immediately passed out because I was so tired from doing nothing all day. Weird.
So here we are back in Iowa City. The Picador would be a cool venue if it wasn’t up a ton of stairs and if it hadn’t been raining and windy as shit. Trying to load up what is essentially a fire escape covered in water isn’t exactly my idea of a good time. You gotta pay the cost to be the boss I guess... I will add that the ceiling was leaking by the men’s bathroom so there was a huge puddle in the middle of the venue. Heavy metal RULES!
The show was a lot of fun and I think we played pretty well. Trap Them had some van trouble so they weren’t able to make this show. Kind of a bummer. I hope they get their van fixed asap. Nothing is more disheartening than van trouble on the road. Bye bye hard earned money! Yikes!
We stayed with a friend tonight, which we rarely do. Normally we just hit the road toward the next town. The house we stayed at had two awesome kitties and a few bull dogs. One of the bull dogs was a little tiny thing with ears so Nate started calling him “little baby bat dog” which I found hilarious. I liked little baby bat dog a lot. There was some beer drinking going on and I had one of my late night worry moments. Every so often, I wake up in the middle of the night, go out to the trailer and touch each piece of my drum kit to make sure I didn’t forget anything. I have been known to forget things at a venue. Luckily everything was there.
Until I forget again!
D
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Tuesday, 20 October 2009 00:00 |
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“Skeletons in the Closet Tour 2009” - October 20th, Colorado Springs, Colorado
By: Derrick Nau of Skeletonwitch
Our triumphant return to the Black Sheep! We have been playing at the Black Sheep here in Colorado Springs since one of our early tours with Dying Fetus and Cephalic Carnage (talk about some super drummers AMIRITE!?) It is a cool place with a nice staff. I like playing there.
After being in California and the surrounding states being in Colorado is like living in a goddamn freezer. It’s only like thirty-something degrees out but I am just not ready for it. I guess I’m just a pussy because I saw kids waiting in line with just t shirts on. However, winter is to heavy metal like strings are to a guitar. I learned that when I took my SATs.
Colorado Springs is pretty close to Denver and Cephalic Carnage lives in Denver. So to our surprise, lo and behold, our old friends Leonard (singer) and Nick (bassist) show up to hang out. Fuckin A! I haven’t seen those dudes in a while, what a pleasant surprise. We have done a US tour with these guys and a close quarters European bus tour with them. Much bonding has been achieved. John Merryman is one of my favorite drummers. A lot people can play fast, but I’ve never seen anyone who can play like John. If you ever get a chance to see Cephalic Carnage, you must do it.
I dropped a stick today. Goddamn it, I think I have to be the stick drop king of the Midwest. I even have that Vic Firth grip tape that I use religiously. Usually the stick drop occurs when I am returning to a beat from the floor tom and I catch the stick on the bottom of my ride. Stupid, stupid, stupid! When I get home from this tour, I’ll need to figure out something to do about that. I think I am also going to adjust my pedals and reduce some of the tension (I have them pretty tight right now). I think that will make it easier to play with speed. I like the good rebound with a tight pedal but I think loosening it a bit will let me have more control. I am always tinkering with my stuff, some kind of weird obsession; I guess I can’t help it. Not the worst OCD behavior I guess.
D
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