18k Today - the recap of 17 - 18

Last night when I parked the motorcycle in the garage at odometer reading 17,999 signaling that it was time to write in the blog I was dumbfounded to find that blogger was down for maintenance. Maintenance? I have never seen the site down, but I'm not a power blogger so I guess it could be down all the time and I wouldn't know. So let's get on with it:

Driving out of the neighborhood this morning the BMW read 18k, so I write and I'll try to remember and cover everything that happened the last thousand miles of significance. I won't even try to keep things in order, but use order of importance to me.

The most notable event from the last 1,000 miles is seeing Rush at the Baltimore Arena (I refuse to call it by it's corporate sponsor name, it's "The Arena" to me and others that I work with). I've seen Rush more than any other band (AC/DC is runner up) and went to the show at the insistence of the wife. Due to a busy work schedule and the reluctance at paying for the expensive tickets I waited to the last minute to call in a favor. Problem with the favor is that I wasn't owed a favor from this particular vendor friend. None the less I made the call spelling out how a favor clearly wasn't owed, but if there was anything he could do it would be greatly appreciated. I got an email 20 minutes later giving directions to show up at Will Call to get tickets and a wrist band, and to go to the lighting booth. I meet the wife after work and we began our journey toward a favorite pub. The show comps were a surprise for her that I was able to keep quiet about for 36 hours, so I asked her if there was anywhere else she'd rather go tonight. She forgot that Rush was in town so she only suggested other pubs that were more local, then I had to tell her that we're going downtown so we could see Rush tonight. She was quite excited.

The email made a reference to "kill seats" which I figured were on the 3rd floor, or behind the stage, or simply what was left over with less than 2 days to performance time. The tickets that were given to us at Will Call showed us as floor and we walked around trying to find the section, but the event staff had us running in circles. I recognized the LD for the band and remembered that the email said to report to the lighting booth... Much to both of our surprise our seats were IN THE BOOTH. This was pretty fantastic to me because most people at that show were impressed by the band and would love to have back stage passes to say how much they loved the music. I on the other hand wanted nothing more than to get to talk to the band's lighting designer who is in my eyes the real rock star in the room. As a side note seeing Rush shows in the 80's in another prominent reason I was drawn to concert lighting and started a stage lighting company. I got a chance to chat with Howard for a minute or two before the show and talked to two other lighting people that I knew from the past. The wife and I watched the show from the lighting booth which is on a raised platform that allows us to see over the floor crowd, and were able to sit in a chair, and there was a cooler! I drank a sparkling water at the intermission and pondered at how seeing this show from the booth was so much better than a back stage meet and greet, and that it was a nice follow up to seeing their shows as a teenager, I've made it to the VIP.

A few weeks later we did lighting for ABBA. The real ABBA? No, this was "ABBA the concert", which is real ABBA to me, but does it really matter? I wasn't at this show but have worked with this band in the past and I think it's the third time we've done lighting for them, assuming that every time it has been "... The Concert". The day after ATC we were booked for a college music festival, followed the next day by a different college arena concert. I do much less work in the field that I have done in the past, but when things get very busy even I end up on the job sites. I scheduled myself to do the midnight load in of equipment at the first college show and we worked until 4-something in the morning. I got into bed at 5:40AM, then was back in the office at 9:00AM - yeah, I felt rough that day. The following morning at 7:00AM was the college arena job... you get the idea, one to the next. Rock n' Roll isn't glamorous and neither is company ownership, it's a misconception that all company owners are rich and accomplished. Yeah, I saw a Rush concert from the VIP, but I've worked a lot of long hours before ending up in that seat.