current mood: bored current music: David Crowder Band - Obsession

So, we're at a concert in Merced, California, during the band intro, which is the point in the show when Terri introduces all the band on the tour. Being the cool person that she is, she also takes the time to introduce the audience to her crew. On this particular day, she was feeling a bit playful, because my normal introduction of "Craig is our lighting guy" was replaced with "...and on lights tonight is Craig, affectionately referred to by the band as "Homeschool!".

Oy.

This is slightly true, I have been called that a few times by people, but mostly by Chuck, the drummer, and Lou, the monitor engineer. But that's okay, it was funny, and it made for some interesting conversation on the bus that night.

We've just completed a two-week run of shows all across central and western United States, from Taylor, Michigan to Merced, California, with several days off. I spent one in downtown Denver, Colorado, which was fun - I visited the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, which was fun. While I was sitting at a display, a little girl walked over to me and loudly announced "Hey! I was there first!", which horrified her mother but made me laugh. She was even nice enough to walk over to me when and announce that she was finished. The space exhibit was pretty awesome - seeing an actor in a spacesuit walk across a diorama of Mars was thrilling, despite the artificial nature of it. (I'm fascinated by astronomy, particularly space exploration. Check out the Planetary Society if you want to know more.)

Our shows have been going well. It's been pretty much all PAR rigs the whole time, but I've learned to deal with it. I did have a pleasant surprise at the Merced show - two Atomic 3000 strobes that the local lighting guy let me use for free. (Atomic 3000s are astonishingly bright - I once had one go off by my face, and I had a headache for the next ten minutes. I tried to find out what the actual lumen output was for them, but apparently, even the nice Martin rep I talked to, Gilbert, doesn't know.1) I waited until the song "Dirty Girl" to use them, on the "...I'll be your dirty girl." line. The effect was excellent - the stage went pitch black except for a single light above Terri and the strobes in blinder mode, then snapped back to pitch black for a second or two before the band started up again. It was definitely my favorite moment of the evening.

I'm currently on the bus back to Nashville for two weeks off. I'm not currently planning on going back to Bandit during that time, if I can make money gigging (lights or sound) I'll live that way. I've made enough money from being on the road that I can safely live for two weeks without working. I know that several of the band musicians gig in their off time, so I'll see if any of them can hook me up with a gig.

1. Gilbert promised to e-mail the R&D department, and said that if I called back in a few days he'd try to have the photometric data available for me. Gilbert rocks.

Exit, stage left. Sparks