HOME		Weekend with Mindi Abair
Thurs 5/1/08 - 7am Arise, get to Burbank airport by 7:15 for a 9:20am flight to Vegas. Shoot, I overslept, Don’t get out the door til 8am. Lucky my wife is dropping me off and I don’t have to pack up my bike this time. and luckily it’s not too crowded when i get there...whew, I’m ok.
10:30 arrive Vegas. It’s chilly. Weird for Vegas.
11am arrive at hotel. Gotta make some cheat sheets for the new Mindi songs...4 songs. Playing 8 songs for a online video concert today and making musical mistakes is not a option.
12noon. Try and get a nap. I didn’t get in bed until 2:30am last night and I am pretty whipped already and the day hasn’t even started yet.
1:30pm I wake up pissed. I had a bad dream that I made a big mistake on a Mindi song and she started crying...What a great dream to have right before soundcheck!
1:40pm Lobby call, head out to the set for the video shoot
2pm - 5pm soundcheck rehearsal. Sounds really good! The sound system sounds great, I feel good playing, the band is smooth and together, the new songs sound nice...so far so good!
6pm The Deep Rock Video shoot. Cool! People email us on the internet and we see the emails over the monitors. They choose what songs they want to hear.... it goes really well! Whew!
9pm back to the hotel...gotta get in early tonight because I have a 7am flight to Cleveland. I am going in on the early flight so I can visit with my folks before we play Saturday night in Akron OH. But oops, I haven’t eaten a meal today. i had some finger sandwich stuff backstage, but no food. Ahh the hotel cafe is open til 10pm..I’ll go see what’s there. Cool...Turkey club and Hot Wings! That’ll do for now. Can’t worry about eating healthy on the road. It ain’t going to happen! Chow down!!
10:30 After sitting and eating with Eric Valentine & Rodney Lee and Rodney making me laugh til my sides hurt and my eyes are watering, I am back at the room...relax, shower, repack, get in bed. Damn! It’s 12:30am!! How’d that happen??!! Ok, I gotta get up at 5am for a 5:30am shuttle to the aiport for my 7am flight...
Fri. 5/2/08 - 2:15pm Ahh Cleveland. It’s dark, it’s pouring rain... Gotham City. Yep. Back home. Hi Mom and Pop! Thanks for picking me up!
3pm - 12 midnite: hang with the folks, Rick Marks and Darry Johnson my old friends come by and we do a Computer/Reason Music Production software tutorial hang...where did the night go? I am so tired...
3am I can’t believe I can’t sleep..i am exhausted...What the heck??!! Ah well. Such is road life. I won’t fight it. Watch a movie on my computer. I’ll sleep when I can...
Sat. 5/3/08 - 10am Rise & Shine! Robbie’s on the phone, he’ll be by in a bit.. My parents are nice enough to drive me to soundcheck...took us 45 minutes to get to Tangiers. We soundcheck for two hours. Mindi likes long soundchecks, but this one is understandable because Jamey Tate has never played her new songs...he didn’t do the Vegas gig, Eric Valentine did.
9:15pm: It’s showtime and the show goes absolutely great! The crowd was ready and pumped from the start and it does my heart good to know that probably one of the best crowds we have encountered are form my home town. They were cheering when we first walked out and the standing ovation was chaotic and strong. The line to greet Mindi was long and patient. Mindi is phenomenal. She meets and greets every single person in the line and takes pictures with everyone who asks. She is carving her career across America, one city, one show and one fan at a time. I am seeing how it should be done...
12:30am: back at the hotel, packed up and time to get in bed because we have to be up at 4:30am for a 7am flight to West Palm, Florida.
Sun. 5/4/08 - 4:30am Rise & Shine! Shower, dress, get down to the Lobby 5am. Off to Florida we go!
10am: Arrive in Florida and it is humid. Take this doggone sweater off! We have to go immediately to the venue. No food, no stops...road managers notoriously like to get the venue way ahead of time, even if you are sickly from low blood sugar...NO STOPS!! WE HAVE TO GET TO THE VENUE AND SIT! And that is exactly what we do...for two hours. Finally we get some lunchmeat! Awesome! We hear a band play that plays a ton of notes...so many notes I start getting irritated, but anyway...
2pm: Showtime...it is an outdoor festival and we start off playing to not that many people, but as we play more and more people start migrating over and by the end of the set, we have a screaming, frenzied crowd in front of us, partying and dancing! Got to love that. Mindi has come a long way in the 5 years I have been playing with her. We al have. The band is strong and she performs comfortably and charismatically. My friend Dave Karasony who will be performing with the Rippingtons right after us made the statement that the band was “Monstrous”. That is a compliment of the highest order!
5pm: back at the hotel and our work this weekend is done. Morris Day and the Time are playing at 7pm and a good friend, Tory Ruffin plays guitar but I just don’t have it in me to go. I gotta take a nap. So i do...and wake up at 11pm when Tory calls to cuss me out for not coming to the show and not hanging with him and Rodney down in the lobby...but i have to get up at 4am to catch the 4:30am shuttle..I am on the “first thing smoking!” as John Nash puts it.
Mon 5/5/08 - My flight is at 7:10 am with a layover in Houston, i should get back to LAX at 11:15am. After watching a great Kevin Bacon movie I rented from the video store on my computer,( Death Sentence, Kevin Bacon is a badass...i dig him. He is a musician too...yeah he’s cool!) I doze off and on and finally, crispy, puffy, stinky and grateful, I am home and my wife picks me up right on time.
3:15PM Back home! It’s always good to be home...boy am i tired...i think I am going to have to finish this writing up..yawn...I love our couch...yawn...ok bye bye for now...Crash time...zzzzzzzz....zzzzzz....zzzzz
André
P.S. there were going to be pictures but I left my camera in Cleveland, when I get it back I will add them, so check back!