Today marks the halfway point of the US leg of the tour, 14 down, 14 to go, and it's just extraordinary how the time flies by. In a whirlwind of travel, cars, planes, sound-checks, gigs, hotels and the knowledge that we lose roughly 190,000 brain cells (neurons) per day..it's no wonder we rarely know what day it is. (thank god we start out with 100 billion of them)

This evening we re-visit another lavish American theatre built in the 1920's. The Chicago theatre was designed in French Baroque style and once again, no expense was spared in it's build.

I went for a short walk around the block armed with the camera of course and found Steve outside the front of the hall.



I noticed this afternoon that a few of the crew boys were looking a bit sleepy and sure enough, Steve happened to mention that they arrived in Chicago at 4am and the buses parked up right underneath an 'L' train track. I'm not sure any of them managed to get a full night's sleep. Of course, they never moan about stuff like that, they just get on with it and we are often none the wiser. The Chicago 'L' trains fascinate me in a mildly geeky way, The system was built back in 1892, making it the second-oldest rapid transit system in the Americas after New York City. The 'L' has been credited with helping create the densely built-up city core that is one of Chicago's distinguishing features. There's something very cool and bold about a train system that runs above the main roads. Why is it called the 'L'?.....the nickname "Alley Elevated", or "Alley L" was conceived during its planning and construction.



After sound-check today, I sat in the front row and chatted with Dave and Sven about the sound in these theatres, as much has been discussed and I do get many comments about the superb job Dave and the sound boys do. He reminded me that on the last tour, we had a bit of a problem in this venue which was an indirect result of a slow load-in. Because of the big lighting rig we had on the KTGC tour, some of the tighter venues required more setup time. A consequence of that is the sound boys can't get going until the truss is in place etc. Dave just didn't have the time he needed to line up the room sonically. This time, things were a little easier and this was confirmed after-show as a few of our pals were there, namely Chuck Ainlay...honorary band member and Producer/engineer of Get Lucky, and Paul Kennerly, a very dear friend of ours and extremely talented songwriter. Both of them said the show was remarkable and that the sound was nothing short of spectacular. It seems Dave and the crew have got it right this time out as the glowing reports keep on coming in.





Dave Dixon (FOH sound engineer) and Sven Waldheim (sound) Sven is the guy you often see wandering the venue during the show with his remote speaker array controller thingy..constantly monitoring the balance of the PA. We quite often see him right down at the front in the aisle checking it all out.



Of course for us on the stage, it's a very different story. We have absolutely no idea of how it's sounding out front but we do seem to have everything together in our in-ear monitors. Every theatre has different characteristics which affect what we hear too and last night was a tad on the low end heavy side but essentially no problem at all. Another aspect of the in ears is that because it's a radio receiving system, the sound quality is not what it would be if we were connected with 'hard-wires'. I know this as I quite often pop my headphones on plugged directly in to my mixer to listen to keyboard sounds and the sonic difference is very noticeable. Mark and I often talk about trusting that is sounds good out front. Having said all that, the technology that allows us to wander the stage free from cables, listening to our own custom mixes AND keep the stage volume down to a bare minimum is embraced by all 8 of us.

When we were in rehearsal back in London, god, that seems like years ago now..Tim came in one day wearing what looked like an extremely comfortable jacket. Mark went out and got hold of one (I think it was online) anyway, here they are sporting their Possumdown bush check jackets.



Here's a shot of Dan and in particular his second snare drum..



From Dan - This snare drum finished in  "White Marine Pearl" and built by master drumsmith Ronn Dunnett, I am using as " Snare 2 ". The idea came up of me using a second snare and I took this opportunity to use the Dunnett snare which is one of my favourite, both live and in the studio.
It's shell is built from "Milkwood", the chunky look is caused by shell depth and the wooden rims which make it look heavy nut it's actually very light and I find that it has an enormous tuning range.
"Snare 2 " is used in crescendos and for an alternative "darker" back beat sound to " Snare 1 " . It is tuned deeper in pitch and Robbo has dampened the head for me to get a deep, rich but very controlled sound. It has proved a very successful addition to my setup. You can check out the Dunnett Drums website.

Bo and Pieta



One of the sculptures either side of the stage.




Natural Selection Competition CLUE

The object in box O is a pocket sextant
The box Q comprises a guitar capo, some pics and a minature solid silver National Steel guitar with a 'heart' engraving.