No travel today, just a 3 block walk to one of the most beautiful venues there is. The only difficult thing to deal with is the heat in New York, it must have been near 100 degrees as I walked down 6th avenue. Photo ID required to enter the building as I look forward to stealing one of Ada's Glenngettie teabags for a nice cuppa. I love coming down here early and watching our crew of around 10 backline/PA boys being shadowed by about 70 completely unneccesary union stage hands, whom I add are very polite and competent, also a lot younger than I remember. Nice to see a new generation of IATSE's. The whole union concept is most prevelant here in New York and wonderful though it's concept was, I feel it's become something other than it was intended. I was reminded by Mark that last year at this venue, we were charged $1400 for the wardrobe girl, and her assistant. Needless to say the shirts were slightly more wrinkled than usual last night. Catering was as it was last year, a foldaway table loaded with chemicals. Betty Crocker cakes that glow in the dark and Lipton's tea...yes I said Lipton's. If there's one thing an Englishman must never do it's drink a cup of Lipton's tea. Danny and I nipped out after soundcheck, during the 'dark-stage' between 6 and 7 to our newfound local Japanese hideaway 'Kikku' on 55th. We thought 4 pieces of uni and 2 Tempura Sobas should do the trick.

Another little challenge I'd forgotten about was the radio interference here. Most of us onstage suffered in some way from the extraneous radio interference coupled with the fact that it's a 'loud' stage, meaning the room reflects a lot of what the PA puts out and we get it. It simply means we turn our packs up a bit. None of this really detracted from what is always a fantastic place to play. It was a great show and the reactions afterwards in the hospitality room and from e-mails received this morning were quite overwhelming. I've also had the pleasure of listening through to the show as Dave Dixon handed me a cd before we left the building last night. As I was photo-lazy yesterday, Pete nipped outsid and took a few snaps with my camera of the fabulous neon signs. As I had no guests last night, I managed to slip out of the building after doing a few autographs and smudges I wandered back to the hotel. If anything it was even hotter and muggier, a real couldron. When I got to my room I fell on the bed and promptly fell asleep, that is until Danny, Richard and Peter called 45 minutes later for tea and NHT pleasures. How could I turn them away. We had a few sounds, a G & T or two and more tea to round off a lovely day in New York.


photo Peter Mackay

photo Peter Mackay


Adrian stands in this position for what must be 15 minutes consistently each day reciting poetry and generally chatting for Dave to work on the sound of Mark's vocal mic. and when the band arrives, he nips off to find tea cups and make a tray of what IS the best cup of tea it's possible to make.
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