Bethlehem PA, Levitt Pavillion
Stayed cloudy and threatening rain for drive to Bethlehem, fine by us as no AC in Boss Hoss. Drive uneventful.
Bethlehem another beautiful town. Rolled into the Levitt Pavillion and were blown away by the scenery. Ruins of old stone factory buildings like Roman arches, decrepit warehouses and the coup de gras: the Bethlehem Steel Stacks, a huge closed down smelting refinery. Looked like the cover of a Black Sabbath album, and was featured in the opening scene of Transformers 2 (never saw it). The Steel Stacks made steel for the Eiffel Tower, Golden Gate Bridge and most skyscrapers in Manhattan. Now served as the Doom-tastic backdrop of the Levitt Pavillion outdoor stage.
Awesome way to begin a tour, playing a real stage and being treated (and PAID) like a real band, heh! Backstage area with dressing rooms and showers even. Deli trays to boot! Installed my new Shure SLX wireless into my rack. Much better over that Line6 toy which it replaced. Didn't even need the instructions to make it work. Turned it on and Hey! Stage sounded great, stage crew and pavillion staff were all awesome. Did an interview even in the green room. Hey we're a real band!
Soundcheck sounded massive. Used both Dietz's so had the wall of TONE going. Which on that concrete stage was almost a little *too* loud. But show went great, good crowd. MJ our PA street-teamer there with husband, our buddy Phil the superfan there with his dog. Good to see all of them. Feels like will take another show or two for me to knock the rust off, we haven't played as a band since Toronto few weeks back. We sounded fine, but I felt some slop on my end. Also using .50-105 strings as opposed to .45-105, extra string tension raised the action a bit.
Great set, crowd and staff loved it. Closed with "Voodoo Child" then an encore was requested. Went back out and blew their heads off (Rob got everyone to come forward) with "Blues Bullets" and we called it a sweat-soaked night.
Afterwards went with Phil and the pavillion stage mgr to the VIP Taproom for drinks. Not sure who was buying, but the Yuengling flowed like water and the owner sent us a pitcher with Jello shots. Good times. Even met Prince's saxophone player! That was unexpectedly awesome. I never caught his name but he was really nice.
Checked in at Holiday Inn in Allentown nearby and we had 4 rooms provided. Hell yeah, big time! Very good start to the tour. Morale is high, and feels like the brutal first run was a rite of passage to bigger and better things. And we do have some big things in the works, keep y'all posted.
