Tour Diary 9.12 (Patreon)

Sorry it's been a while since Iast posted a Tour Diary entry. It's been an extraordinarily hectic couple of weeks - far more so than I ever expected. The west coast leg of the tour has been a really fast-paced run, and every show has been in some way remarkable. I'm going to share a little bit about each show so far below.

Denver, CO:

I had heard about how the mile high city leaves some visitors breathless, and I was quite nervous about the possibility of getting altitude sickness. I've also had a bit of a fear of flying for most of my life, so the trip to Denver was a daunting endeavor to try and undertake. I wasn't going to let my anxieties get the best of me though, so I powered through the flight and got to Denver a day early in the hopes of acclimating to the thin air. Lugging my baggage through the airport was exhausting with how little oxygen I was feeling in my lungs, and despite a total lack of sleep and the breathlessness, I still made my way to Meow Wolf's Convergence Station the next day. Convergence Station is a sort of psychedelic theme park in Denver, where the show was slated, and the venue was one of the most fascinating things I've ever seen. It was such an honor and trip to be booked there.

The show felt great. The turnout was one of my biggest ever, and the audience was fantastically enthused. I played on the best piano I've ever performed on - a delightfully punchy and high-action Yamaha C3 grand, and despite my weakness from the altitude I performed about as well as I ever hope to. I had to sit for the last three ukulele songs, because the "Boost" brand Oxygen cans they sell at CVS are as much of a scam as they sound like, but I had a fantastic time. Big shout out however, to the girl who kept screaming "show us your cock." Glad you were having a laugh, glad those around you were having a laugh, and glad to have seen the look of mortification on your face and heard the applause from the other side of the crowd when I let you know I myself was not laughing. 

You can really feel the difference between a vocal audience member who just wants to have fun and participate and one who genuinely wants to disrupt and is coming from a place of disrespect. The former can be a good time, because you can riff off them and have a laugh or two without it feeling angry or harsh, and they tend to know when enough is enough. There are always some folks who have some stuff to say, but on this tour there have really only been a few moments where things felt disrespectful or ill-intended. The "show us your cock" girl in Denver, and the "Daddy" lady in Boston. (Boston was overall really tough)

I hope she realized how unacceptable that was after she lost the crowd. Overall a fantastic time, despite the thin air and one particularly yucky heckle. The negative is fun to share, but the positive is overwhelming. Thanks for coming out, for the support, and for being such a great audience.

Las Vegas, NV:

I took an early morning flight to Vegas while the rest of the team trucked through the mountains overnight. I knew I wouldn't have been able to sleep, the dry air on the bus would've ruined my vocal cords after ten hours, and the air was even thinner through the mountains, which go up to altitudes where genuine altitude sickness is much more common, so I booked an economy ticket and flew over the desert. It was a beautiful sight, unlike anything I've ever seen. Kind of a rough flight, but really not something I should complain about considering how much of a bitch the ride must've been for the others.

The turnout in Vegas was dismal, with only around a hundred or so tickets sold in a 350 cap room. To succeed on any given night on the strip, you have to basically be a household name, because you're competing with over a hundred concurrent shows. And Vegas locals apparently don't come to the strip if they can avoid it, so that probably contributed to the low ticket sales despite the fact that it's a pretty big market in my analytics. The venue, the Virgin Casino (formerly the Hard Rock Casino) tried so hard to get people to come to the show. They put me in the local papers, they put my name on huge billboards, and they even sent out a hundred free tickets to people. No luck. In the end I didn't mind however. It made for a really cool, intimate vibe. Y'all were such a pleasure to just sort of hang out with, and I hope you had fun.

I'm sorry if you were shooed away by a staff member when you tried to meet me after the show. She was trying to protect me from being mobbed, and sometimes staff need to be the bad guy in order to help me maintain some boundaries. She ended up apologizing to me for being so gruff with the fans, said she didn't realize I wanted to speak to people and just wanted to help. It was very sweet of her to care like that, and I'm sorry that misunderstanding scared a couple of you off, she was truly adamant that she meant no harm. One of the most helpful, polite, and accommodating staff ever, that venue.

Phoenix, AZ:

The drive through the desert from Vegas to Phoenix was an absolute trip. I've seen photos of the landscape before - from the mesas to the cacti to the Hoover Dam, but seeing photos is absolutely nothing like seeing it for real. It's stunning. The strange rock formations that seem inexplicable aside from cosmic intervention, the flat lands with mountains that appear seemingly out of nowhere, the deep valleys and empty rivers. Nick, the driver, passed by Armadillo roadkill, we found a dead tarantula on the side of the road, and I played Chemical Overreaction next to an easily 10-12 foot tall cactus in the 106 degree heat, wearing a ridiculous fedora I'd found at an independent truck stop called "Last Stop" where a Donald Trump Zoltar machine wedged between Vegas shot glasses and Area 51 plushies told me "tis better to keep one's mouth shut and be thought a fool than to flap one's gums and remove all doubt." Which was hilarious.

From the moment we arrived at Valley Bar in Phoenix, something was off. For whatever reason, the venue seemed to hate me, my team, and the openers. As if it was just an inconvenience that we had sold out their basement bar, and were just the crap openers for their nightclub hours after the show, featuring "DJ Jalapenis." They messed with the schedule, jamming my set up against the Jalapenis curfew (whose presence we were never informed of) and rushing the VIP meet & greet, and were weirdly rude the entire night. I could barely speak to the sound guy, and at one point Gabe, the videographer and production guy, found himself asking him questions and receiving silence right to his face. If I recall correctly, Matt, my agent and tour manager, had to fight with the venue over them without warning trying to claim a cut of the VIP passes.

There's a strange rule in Phoenix and some other cities, where 21+ crowds need to be separated from under 21 crowds, so a series of metal blockades were placed right down the middle of the room. To my left were the 18+, and to the right was the bar, where the older crowd was. It was quite strange. 

The audience was phenomenal though, and I had a hell of time performing in that sweltering room. I also had a very funny exchange with my dad, Shayfer.

Los Angeles, CA:

The Vermont Hollywood was the nicest venue I've ever played. The green room was more like a luxury apartment, the room was beautiful. I was once again lucky enough to play on a Yamaha C3 - and while this one was stiffer than the one in Denver, and glissandos were hard to pull off, it was a joy to play. Oddly enough, the venue owned the gas station and AMPM next door, so that's where we parked, so we got the slightly sketchier side Los Angeles experience as well - but the venue was shockingly well maintained and high quality in production value, sound, staffing, and comfort.

I joined my dad on stage for his set, where we played Ferryman together and found ourselves really locked in, with me on the Yamaha and him singing lead. Then, I played for the largest audience I've ever played for. 508 people seated between the ground floor and the balcony, at a venue in Hollywood. It was such a trip - and not only was it the largest I've ever played for, it was one of the most receptive and enthusiastic. I've been considering my most recent show in Columbus Ohio my favorite show ever, but this one gives it a run for its money. The songs were flowing well, my intonation held up for nearly two hours, even my riskier or edgier jokes hit hard, and the crowd was super supportive. 

The folks who worked there let Matt set up a roped off cue that lead people on line for admission right toward the merch table. That part was extra fun, since we had just learned the day before that AtVenu (the P.O.S. system that much of the industry uses) had awarded us for being their top seller in their small cap artist category, so we got a kick out of referring to Austin as an award-winning merch guy. But after the show, I popped by the merch stand to sign stuff and say hello (which I usually do for a few minutes to drum up additional business, meet some cool people, and check in on things before I get mobbed and have to run away) and Matt came up to me to say we "have a situation."

He told me the venue wanted money, that they had to pay their security extra because the merch line was taking too long. Which was not part of the agreement, and should not be a thing in the first place. Some venues take a merch cut as part of the negotiation, and if they want money for the time every artist always spends selling merch after a show, they need to either work that into their expenses, into the door deal, or into a merch cut, not extort the artist's team for $800 and say "give us the money or we're kicking you out of the venue."

I told Matt to tell the venue I said they can suck my dick, but the venue was ready to die on that hill. But I suppose since the owner wasn't there to enforce it, the general manager couldn't argue with what we did in response to it: Austin and Felipe (the VIP guy who also helps with merch) lead the merch line out of the venue, and toward the trailer in the gas station, where they proceeded to sell thousands more in merch (breaking Austin's already record-breaking record) to dozens of fans out of the trailer with a mobile P.O.S. system.

We then took a trip down Hollywood Blvd. Which is a truly miserable place.

Day off in Arvin, CA:

We went to an outdoor mall and marveled at the mountains. I went to hot pocket and bought some clothing because I am wrestling with my age. The fact that everything was buy two get one free is my only excuse for my terrible "me and the squirrel are friends" GIR t-shirt.

I'll try my best to do at least one more Tour Diary before the end of the tour.

It's now the end of my first day off, and we have another day off tomorrow. Only a handful more shows before the end of the ICIMI tour. I might book a couple super last minute local things at a studio or two to finish off the live album recording with a couple live-in-studio ones, but then it's time for me to hang up the old identity for a while.

I'll be posting more info about the upcoming Patreon changes when I get home, and I'll make absolutely sure that the transition to the new system is as smooth as possible. Thanks so much as always for the support.

Much love,
-ww