February 15, 2016 - 1:32am ... I have to make this quick today... I'm so tired... and bus call is 6:30am. We have a 6hr drive tomorrow to Saskatoon (8hrs), and it's a show day. We're supposed to be there for 2pm... and then wait until probably 6pm until they're ready for us... but regardless what time we're supposed to be there and what time we're actually needed irrelevant... it's going to feel like a long drive tomorrow since everyone feels tired today. So today... woke up a bit later for breakfast... around 8am... I actually slept through my alarm and Matt woke me up. I'm sorta sick of the "free" breakfasts already... the novelty of hotel waffles has worn off... and I think I'm gaining weight with all the sitting around. After breakfast we did a quick load of laundry and bugged Tim in the gym to pass the time... good times. I was bugging people to go for a walk or something... it was so nice outside... I just wanted to stand around in the sun... I feel like it's been a while since we've had actual sunlight... I cut my hair this morning and everything! I was ready for it! It's glorious rays! It's warm outside too!!! 10C!!!! We headed to the venue for 1:30pm... lots of crew said hello to us when we came in. I wouldn't say we're all best friends but it's nice having them acknowledge you... although we know where we stand in the pecking order and what cog we are in the machine. ... it's such a crazy stage setup. We've seen quite a bit of it put together but there's just so much... really curious how it looks the first couple hours... since they rip it apart so fast at the end of the night! I chatted with Saint Asonia's guitar tech (Hoogie) a little today. I'd heard his name several times over the years (18 as a tech apparently!) and figured we'd have some common ground with Evans Blue. Turned out to be the case... said he's toured with them (teching for other bands) many times over the years. It's such a "family" environment... something I've watched from the outside over the years, working in a pretty small circle (or solo) in the studio. I may be quiet but I do enjoy people's company! I really do! lol. I chatted with Saint Asonia's drum tech as well... his name is Sal... I asked him how long he's been teching for... seems like only a couple weeks... turns out he's the drummer for Stained... I felt like a bit of an idiot for not realizing that but also how it makes sense since the guitarist from Saint Asonia is from Stained. Keep it in the family. ... I've had a handful of friends over the years offer to be my drum tech if I ever needed one... I joke there won't be much to do since I have such a small setup... but I think that's the point... it'd be more of a hang... not that Sal isn't working hard (because I see how hard techs work!) but it's more fun bringing your friends out... especially when they have a gap in their schedule. Again, cogs in the machine... everyone pushing in the same direction... music isn't easy. It was a good chat though... I may not be a "musicians" musician, or a gear guy... but I love checking out peoples setups... there's a lot of character and personality in everyone's setup. ... we waited by our gear for a while today. I've accepted we will be yelled at for something new each day... and in Winnipeg it was not being ready to load our gear... so once Disturbed started their soundcheck, we went to our gear pile.. and waited. ... and waited... waited some more. Not complaining, but we were gonna be ready. ... waiting... I think we went to our gear at 5:05pm and loaded it on stage at 6:20pm... and we loaded it fast... Saint Asonia only had/needed 15 mins to get their gear on stage and wired up... and we were loading up half on top of them. It's stressful... again... trying to do your job but not step on the toes of anybody above you. There is an order and we're an opening act. We did get a little soundcheck though... off stage by 6:53pm, doors at 7pm! ... success. Waiting again now... we go on at 7:50pm. I love the little intro music/clip I put together. I love it when the lights go down and it fires up. ... I have 45 seconds to get to my kit, get my (in) ears in, click on my iPod, and start the set. The heart rate gets going though when it fires up... the crowd... the nerves go away... time to throw down. Our set went well again tonight... I only missed one drum fill... had a bit of a brain fart making rock faces with people in the front row... it happens. ... was sorta crapping my pants though once I checked the time... our set is 30 mins, and can't go over... just assume going over means a fail. You can get 99 questions right on the exam, but if you get that one wrong... you fail the course... and everyone hates you. So we had 10 mins left going into the last 2 songs... 4 and 3 min songs... all good... but we ran a bit long on some crowd participation parts... and while it's fun having people sing along... we only have so much time. The last breakdown part in the last song I'm free to take a couple pics of the audience... we had 2 mins left... we gotta finish this up asap! It's hard to signal to Tim we gotta hurry up while I'm playing drums... so I killed the click and just played it faster. No joke... this needs to end asap! ... ended the set at 8:19pm. #pass ... too close for my comfort though. We'll talk about it in the van tomorrow since I know where things went long. Finally saw some video of our set too... sounds pretty good in my opinion! Good job Seb! He said he thought it sounded pretty good out front... I told him he was biased. ... so I was sitting in my typical spot at shows to watch Disturbed's set... sitting... at the back of the venue. I noticed my wifi connection was pretty good (been great all day) so I thought I'd see if my parents were around on Skype... "you around?" "hi" ... I called them, turned on my video and pointed the camera at the stage. I'm sure my mom was trying to figure out what was going on and trying to talk to me... although I couldn't hear here anyway over the crowd... so I just messaged them again that Disturbed's set was about to start. ... and start it did. I'm not sure how much they were really able to see over Skype video but there's a lot going on lighting and pyro wise on the opening tune. Hopefully it looked alright... I'm sorta weird about having friends and family come out to shows, but I thought this was a happy medium... and I wanted them to see it. These are awesome shows... we're playing hockey arenas... it's sort of a big deal for me and I'm sure my parents get a kick out of it. They've been super supportive since the beginning... they've never (really) told me to get a (real) job. I let them watch the second song as well and then had to turn my Skype off... partially because I'm sure what I was doing broke some laws but also because my hand was cramping. "Ok thanks, nice surprise! Sounds good. Pretty exciting. Enjoy every minute. It's a treat for us too. Thank you!!" Technology. *tear* Prayer is my favorite song in their set... such a good tune. Rich (Saint Asonia - drummer) popped in our dressing room after Disturbed finished their set and mentioned maybe going to a bar after... if we were interested. ... we were all "sure! yeah that sounds great!" on the outside... but on the inside we're all "fuhgg!?!" We really need to sleep and get on the road early. It's one thing to have a bus driver... driving your bus to the next city... but we have to drive ourselves... and we still need to sleep. ... it didn't turn into a thing luckily enough and we were out of the venue by 1am. ... couldn't make it past McDonald's though. We've decided "no day is official until Reid has consumed a hamburger of sorts". ... I also accidentally guilted Reid into buying me a Cadbury Cream Egg McFlurry. I totally didn't want it... but I totally ate it... it was totally awesome. ... shower... blog... bed time. It's going to be a long couple days coming up... drive, play, drive... then we have a couple days off I think to sleep... probably do a photoshoot once we're in Calgary... if I know Tim. Mike :-) P.S. Reid put some duct tape on the stage and we got yelled at for that... so that's what we were yelled at for today.
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Mike Langford - Official BlogBeing on both sides of the glass, I get the chance to wear many hats in the music industry. This is a place to share my thoughts, views, predictions, rants, stories and news! Categories
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