hi all
off the road for a couple days from doing sound for the michael franti and
spearhead tour. pretty hectic schedule, with little time to rest. here's a
short re-cap..
day one: bonnaroo festival in manchester, tennessee
ran into lars fredriksen from Rancid at the airport.. did a couple gigs with
him at house of blues...
good turn out, played before dr. john's set. went to see james brown and the
grateful dead after our gig. pretty wild looking out at a crowd of about
100,000 (no joke!) (that was for the dead, not for our gig!)
birmingham, uk - academy 2
sold out. hung out with grizzly, the drummer from the reggae band Steel
Pulse. said it was the best sounding show he had heard there (aw shucks!)
london, uk - royal festival hall - lee "scratch" perry's meltdown festival
sold out crowd of 3000! shared the bill with Sun Ra Arkestra and DJ Spooky,
who joined the band. kinda neat doing a sold out gig at a place with such a
history.
day off::: wandered around london... our hotel was next to the thames river in
Southwark (pronounced: suthuk). wandered around piccadilly circus, charring
cross, trafalgar square. dave, the guitarist, suggested seeing a former
spearhead soundguy at a club... turns out i knew the guy since he was the
monitor guy for Motorhead. PLUS the band playing at the club that night was an
orange county band who Casey, a guy i used to work with at House of Blues, was
doing sound for. small world! hung out a little with him.. rode the London
Eye, a huge ferris wheel next to the Thames....
next gig: king tut's, glasgow, scotland
beautiful rolling hills... like to come back some time. all the people were
super nice and funny.
next gig: the village, dublin, ireland
took the ferry across to ireland at liverpool. hung out with my old friend
Steve from boston, who moved back to ireland a couple years ago. another cool
city i want to come back to.
next day: travel to brighton, uk
took forever to get there. our nice dutch bus driver, toon, had a bus that was
just too slow. shame to spend our day off driving. when we finally got there,
hung out with my brazilian friend from san francisco, anna, who now has a thick
south english accent and vocabulary. stayed overnight at her and her husband's
place. had a gig next day, which they came to. sold out gig at a cool little
club called the concorde 2, right on the seashore.
next gig: paris, france. Le Zenith, opening for Tricky
drove overnight to paris.. stayed up long enough to see the bus drive into the
huge train that took us through the england-france train tunnel. awesome. the
gig was in a large arena for 10,000. the local crew seemed to appreciate me
trying to speak french... phoned my friend from san francisco, vivian, who is
living in france, but never got a chance to hang out.
next gig: dijon, france Tribu festival
yesterday, the local crew were threatening a nationwide strike, and today it
happened. while we were loading in and doing sound check, the crew started to
disappear. and by the time we returned to do the show, all the microphones
were taken and sound equipment was shut off, with the workers picketing in
front of the club. a real shame, since many people came from FAR away to see
the show... would have been a cool festival, one band was from Brazil, and
another from Mali.. we ended up doing a little acoustic show for 4 hours in
the backyard, which was a lot of fun in the end.
next gig: St. Gallen open air festival, Switzerland
huge outdoor festival, great crowd. hung out with more friends from San Fran,
Kaspar and Julia.
Munich, Germany - Muffathalle
first gig with a bad turnout (it was sunday). venue was neat, built on top of
an old mill. they had a great beer garden, serving steins of beer the size of
a pitcher!
Amsterdam, Holland - Paradiso
totally sold out show, with tons of people outside trying to get in. hoping to
see some relatives here, but that didn't happen. the whole 3 1/2 hour show is
on the net at
http://www.fabchannel.com click on "michael franti 2003" on the
right side of the page.
Nijmegen, Holland - Lux
neat club in a movie theater complex. sold out again! still didn't see any
relatives, which was a bummer.
Macon, France- day off
torino (turin), italy
day off... stayed up while we drove through the alps, which was awesome. ran
around turin, really old buildings, beautiful old churches, and the ice cream
here rocks! did a festival the next day in an arena....
flew back to california, next day had a gig in the Sierras, which was beautiful.
off to canada next by way of NYC... our bus driver showed up 3 hours late,
keeping us in limbo at JFK airport. finally picked us up, drove thru the
night. when we woke up, found out he had driven 2 hours in the wrong
direction. finally get back on course, try to cross border, but driver is a 3
time felon, who they are not going to let across. festival sends a bus to pick
us up from ottawa, and we make the gig just in time.
company sends another driver, but he also has a record, so we end up taking a
passenger bus to Quebec City. cool town. fly to toronto the next morning, had
a great gig there. then off to gathering of the vibes, a deadhead festival in
upstate new york... last gig was at Woodstock, in a little open air playhouse.
neat location....
tomorrow, off to vancouver for a few gigs, then Japan for Fuji Rock Fest! back
here for Reggae on the River, then Australia and New Zealand, where i guess
they are pretty big (top 10)....
lot of work, but lot of fun too!
more later
michael versteegt