A group of my talented friends at work volunteer at the customer conference each year as entertainment for one of the nights as a band. They're named the Navitunes (after the name of the company), though I believe this name was imposed on them and is not necessarily their name of choice. In any case, they make a good cover band with the ability to manage a wide range of genres:
I also experimented with a little time-lapse sequence of the band setting up and running through sound-check:
These last two days consisted of pretty much just driving. I'm glad to be home and find the girls well. From the last show in Kansas, here is another shot from stage right:
Thursday didn't get a blog update for two reasons: 1) we received tickets on Wednesday evening for the U2 360 degree show in Houston. The show was IN CRED IBLE. Unfortunately, unless you have a press pass, you can't bring anything more than a point-and-shoot camera. Some day I should probably get one of those. And 2) at about 6:00 AM the next morning we got a call in our hotel room from the front desk along the lines of, "...we think your car was just broken into..."
Sure enough, someone smashed in the front passenger window and got away with about $4,000 worth of gear. Fortunately Cary is a veteran at this touring business and had the gear insured.
So we spent the better part of what was supposed to be a sleep-in day fixing the damage. First Cary called the police to file the report. The officer came and had him produce a list of everything that was lost. Cary called up the the auto insurance and glass repair places. I scoped out the locations of the closest Guitar Center stores. Cary called the closest store and gave them the list of items, asking them to have it ready for when we arrived in the early afternoon. Actually purchasing the gear was the most painful part because, evidently, guitar center doesn't usually process orders that big. That took a ridiculous two hours.
But overall, Cary considers this the universe's way of providing him with the updated gear he had hoped to eventually get. This outlook numbed the sting and made for a reasonably pleasant day.
We made our way to one of the Dallas Guitar Center stores to pick up a couple of additional items that the Houston store didn't have in stock and then made our way to a hotel at the airport. After a little dinner, Cary quickly set everything up to make sure he had all the kinks worked out before Friday's show.
On Friday morning and afternoon we drove to Parsons, Kansas for the Labette Community College's yearly Labette Idol music competition. Cary was booked to provide the entertainment after the contestants performed and before the judges made their final decisions. The new looping rig presented some problems during the sound check but Cary got them worked out in time for the show.
The venue was a rather impressive restored community auditorium that seats about 1,000. A decent sound engineer, interesting lighting (in a good way) and a mixed, appreciative crowd made for a good show overall.
Today brought us to a community college just outside of Houston Called Lone Star College. The audience was enthusiastic and the stage was nicely situated. Cary rocked the house, as usual, and made some new fans.
Tonight we're off to the U2 360 degree show at the stadium here in Houston that apparently seats 70,000 people. This is going to be incredible. And next time we see U2, it'll be Cary opening for them.
Today's itinerary: Cary plays an intimate show at a coffee shop in Houston after we navigated through a substantial rain storm between Oklahoma City and here.
First Morning of the tour. Yesterday we made our way to Boulder, Colorado and stayed at Matt's house. Matt is a very generous friend of Cary's that met Cary on his first tour and is a young, tech start-up genius. And he had a very nice view from his balcony this morning.
After dinner, DD will often pull out the fiddle while I start the dishes and EV works up the motivation to take her daily bath. A little fiddle session while washing the dishes makes me all the happier to be home.
This weekend I photographed the Cary Judd and Ryan Shupe shows, this time with a back-stage pass. We also grabbed some new promo shots for Cary's guitar sponsor, Anthem. In-cred-ible opportunity and I pushed my gear to its very limits.
20mm, 1/60th of a second, f/5.6, ISO 200, flash camera left.
As always, click the image for a more impressive view and other shots from the show.
Sometimes DD fiddles for a bit in the evening which is a nice way to wind down.
18mm, 1/500th of a second, f/5.6, ISO 200, speedlight camera left manual mode somewhere in the 1/8th power range with a mini softbox.
This is a visual commentary on my drumming without a metronome.
18mm, 1/500th of a second (to eliminate all of the ambient light in the basement/studio), f/16, ISO 200, heavily snooted main light to camera right, gelled speedlights to camera left and right for accent color. EV served as art director.