Tales From The Road 2012 - PointFest - St. Louis, Missouri (5-20-12)
We had a morning lobby call of 10:30am, which wasn’t too bad considering I didn’t have a long night. I woke up more refreshed and a little less jet lagged. Another good thing was having the breakfast included with the room so I helped myself to that $Free.99 meal which was well worth the price. What wasn’t such a good thing was us running out of the herbal essence. Hopefully St. Louis would be able to help us out with that little problem. I would’ve also liked a straight through flight instead of stopping in Chicago but as that Rolling Stones song says, “You can’t always get what you want!!”
We arrived in St. Louis later in the afternoon but we wouldn’t have too much time in the hotel because of us having to get to the venue for some press and for our crew to get all of our gear there. The word was that a big storm was coming so hopefully that wouldn’t affect the show. If this was Europe, a storm wouldn’t mean anything because the crowd wouldn’t leave. They aren’t afraid of a little rain, mud or anything like that so if they stay, they expect the show to go on. We are used to it because it seems that CH brings the rain a lot so it kind of adds a certain mood to our shows. This is purely just my opinion but I think that some of the other guys would agree with me. When we got to the venue, it was instantly familiar to us. We played here several times over the years with the first time being Lollapalooza 94. We were all laughing because we had many of funny and crazy times here. If you are expecting to read about these times, you won’t be in this particular story. You may just have to wait for the book. LOL!! The one thing that we did notice that for as many times as we have played at this venue, our picture isn’t on their walls. Not even one hip hop group was on there. Oh well, you can’t have them all, right??
The catering was much improved from the Columbus show because there was actually food available. I have to say that you really appreciate good catered food when you are on tour because if the food sucks, your only other choice is to order in and that usually means fast food which is a no-no for me. Our other “problem” was quickly solved when one of the homies who was touring with Incubus hooked us up with the herbal upliftment. We just had a little press to do so besides that, all we had to do was just chill and wait for our set. We also had a t.v. in the dressing room so we were able to watch the playoff game, which was a big plus.
It was close to showtime when the storm came through heavy, so they pushed our time back to wait for it to pass. The lightning was pretty fierce so when the crowd was cheering, it was because of the light show from the storm but soon it was over and it was time to play. We were definitely ready!!! We’ve always had a good crowd in St. Louis and tonight would be no exception. We only had a 45-minute set so we were able to blaze right through. We were more in pocket than last night’s show which wasn’t bad at all. I definitely believe that the first show of any tour isn’t necessarily the best show as that is the show that you get all the cobwebs off so to speak, unless you have already been on tour & you are just coming back after a short break. I think that the best is yet to come!! The new weed medley that we do is working out great and the new DJ/Percussion battle is getting better. By the time we get back stateside, that will be on point. I will say that doing a 45-minute set sure seems to go by quick. We’ve gotten used to the 90-minute set and to be dripping with sweat. This isn’t to say we don’t work as hard in the shorter sets but after doing a long set, doing anything short seems like a walk in the park. In any case, the crowd was very into the show and they were loud!!
After the show, we just chilled out for a bit while we waited for the van to take us back to the hotel and that seemed like forever. Back in the early days, we used to always walk in the crowd before and after our show. B, this time, felt like walking around so we all trooped out to the crowd to check out some of Incubus’ set. There were people tripping out that we were all walking around and when we sat to watch the show, people came over to us for autographs and pictures. We stayed for a few songs then made our way back to the dressing room. By this point, we were all ready to get back to the hotel.
All in all, the fans in St. Louis were hype and it seemed that everyone had a good time. As for us, we were happy with the show. There are things that we will change and improve on but we are just getting started. We have about 50 or so shows ahead of us. We have about a week before we head out to Europe. We originally had a show in the Canary Islands but since that festival got canceled, we get a few more extra days to enjoy some down time before the grind begins. 50 shows means 50 blog entries so stay tuned!!
Next Stop: Nice, France
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