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Lean and Mean: What we are - Who we are
I thought you might like to know what we are, and how we bring this serious fun machine to you on a nightly basis. Here are a few facts:
We are not the biggest machine to ever hit the road. After many years of excess and fat, we have paired our scene down to what might be looked upon as a lean mean lovin’ machine. Every night the circus pulls into a town near you and delivers the music and the vibes. In our wake we have traveled over 10,000 miles on this leg of our tour. We will go to 13 cities in 17 shows. There are 60 of us on the road, and it takes 7 1/2 hours to set up and 4 hours to tear this beast down. There are 133 lights and 196 speakers, which pull 100,000 watts of power with peak volume at 113 decibels. There is 12 miles of cables used in various ways. There are 130 inputs on the mixing consoles and we use 77 microphones to bring it to you. We are carrying 35 guitars, 5 keyboards and 99 percussion instruments, plus 1 dog bone.
We have 9 band busses weighing 320,000 lbs., and 6 semi's weighing 500,000, with gear.
But wait a minute, what about the people behind the Rock 'n Roll heroes? Now remember, a band is only as good as its crew, its support. Without a caring and loving crew we would come to grinding halt before we even get out of the starting gate.
As we reach the end of this run there are a few acknowledgments I would like to make.
We have the best of crews out with us this time. On the drums as always is Ramrod, my rock. And there's Mark Peterson on the midi and electronic sounds.
There is Dan DeMeo, the master drum tuner. We have a massive drum presence out here and it takes all three to fire it up each night.
Dealing with the stage sound is Scott Murray from my band, Bembé Orisha, and Ian DuBois from Phil's band. Mike McGinn is front of the house, and of course the amazing lights of Candace Brightman our long-suffering lighting director from the Grateful Dead days.
Our road managers Kathy Sunderland (the love bunny) and Chuck Randell (The Evil One) are really a pair. Cell phones always to their ear, they guide us through this maze. Without there eyes we would surely crash and burn. A good road manager is indispensable and the two of them are a great tag team. Both are pros with a heart and soul as big as a drive-in movie-ooo-eee. Kara Gilfoil, also the greatest, is our asst. road manager.
Then there is Robbie Taylor (the most feared man in Rock’s Roll) on Phil's bass and keyboards. He is triple threat as the masterful production manager. He has been with us since the mid-seventies and is as good as it gets at what he does. He really is the guy ultimately responsible for bringing this show to you.
On Guitars- Eric Pretto on Jimmy and Aaron Srybnik (AJ) on Bobby.
The sound team is made up of Michael Jackson, Tom Lyon and Shawn Anderson.
Chris Samardizch is on the moving images and Pete Rabinowitz on liquids.
Also on the lighting team are Dave Carr, Andrew Gumper, and Rick Neilson.
Kelley Lapping, who works on lights is also the crew chief, and stage manager.
The rigger is Anthony Philips. Director of security is Rick Rentz
Mike Yanoscik, (Jingles) is the financial wizard.
All these people give their hearts and souls to our performance each night. We try not to disappoint them. Here's thanks to them for everything.
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