diary

03/13/2008

Yesterday we arrived in Columbia. It was basically an 18 hour adventure getting from our hotel in Belo Horizonte, Brazil to Bogota, Columbia.

There was a major lay over in Sao Paulo and we were just hanging out in the airport for hours. Seemed like all of our fans were at that airport as well, because everywhere we turned there was somebody else wanting a photo and signing. Kinda crazy!

When we did finally get to our hotel it was a total shit-hole. None of us even would walk into our rooms. Basically we turned around and waked straight back to the lobby and asked Rikk our tour manager to find us another hotel ASAP. It did not happen until the next day when in the late afternoon we finally moved.

I spent that night sleeping on what felt like raw springs on a bed in the middle of a highway. Sounded like it! After we finally ended up at our new hotel the next day we were all starving (afraid to eat at the other hotel) so we went directly to the restaurant and order more food then we could possibly eat. So much that the waitress there was laughing at us!

After a much better quiet night I woke up to hammering and dogs barking! And you thought the road was easy??

Today after going absolutely stir crazy I decided to head out for a walk. I took the main street in the direction of a western style mall. I have to admit I was a little scared on the streets here.

Lots of security guards especially around the better stores. I did make it to the mall and it was pretty high class. Guards at the entrance, guards everywhere!

I did meet a fan in the mall at Tower records. He was very surprised to see me and very nice.

I managed to find my way back safely and now I’m getting ready to go to the soundcheck for the show at El Coliseo.

03/14/2008

March 14th 2008

The concert in Bogota last night was very exciting. It was a bit of a struggle for me personally, because the sound in the hall was really echoey and it made things unclear in my in ear monitors. But you guys don’t want to hear about that and besides, we don’t get paid to complain, we get paid to ROCK, and that we did!

Great audience. Really fantastic. After the show we went right back to the hotel and had some food delivered from the Hard Rock Cafe which I discovered on my walk earlier in the afternoon. A Veggie Burger in Bogota!

Woke up today and head out the door for the airport to go from Bogota to Caracas.

When we stepped in the airport it was more like a construction site and the entire staff was wearing little white masks. Scary! I held my breath the whole time (kidding) until I got a mask of my own (not kidding). Finally, after making it through the really long line at immigration, I ended up at a pretty nice airport lounge. Discovered some really cool Dashboard widgets for my Mac. A BPM counter and a Tuner Fish (which lets me sing into the Mic of the Mac and it tells me the pitch. It’s meant for tuning guitars actually! Mike was having fun singing into it, guessing which pitch he was gonna sing and then seeing if he was right. He’s pretty good at that game!

When we finally arrived in Caracas, we then had to board a bus which was a 3 hour journey to Valencia, where the gig is. First stop though was at a Subway sandwich shop and securing sandwiches for all! My Turkey order somehow morphed into a Pepperoni and Ham sandwich which was gross, so no food for the weary.

The bus ride was a good place to break out my new Korg Kaossilator though and Robert Dorion (my tech) and I had a good back and forth game going on with it, creating some very cool grooves. I love that thing!

When we arrived at the hotel tonight I was invited out with Emanuel, the promoter and some of the guys to a really good restaurant here in town! Had some good chat and some laughs with a young Venezuelan lad named Andres about music/politics and such and then it was time to head back to the hotel.

I’m sitting here now in my hotel room. It’s 2:30 in the morning and I’m pretty exhausted. Such is life on the road!

03/17/2008

March 17th 2008

Well I made it through all the shows in South America without getting sick. That was an accomplishment I thought considering all the intense travel and unusual conditions we had to deal with. I DID get sick however on the way back to Caracas after all the gigs were over. When we were about 40 minutes from Caracas I came down with a very bad stomach virus and the details are to upsetting to mention in this diary!

What is not upsetting is the fact that the Venezuelan show rocked!! What a great way to end the tour. The audience was intense and totally into it. There are some things that you never think about I’m sure when you come and see us play, like my riser for instance! When I walked onto it for sound check my first thought was that I would fall through it if I bounced up and down! It was so shaky.

Ace tech to the rescue of course. Robert found a way to fix it before the show started – thankfully! The other kinda strange thing that happened behind the scenes has to do with food. It was not a good food day! Usually I try to eat very healthy but I was really thrown off track today. Snickers bar for breakfast starting things off badly. When I got to the venue there were hot dogs and hamburgers for the catering.

I tried to bite into it the two choices but got grossed out pretty quickly. So I ordered McDonald’s. That arrived after sound check and was grosser than any of the other choices. So before the show I had 2 or 3 carrot sticks from our veggie tray!

After the show we all ordered Tony Roma’s. That was really exciting to the band and the crew. It’s the little things on the road that seem to matter!

When we were ready to leave, we all said our goodbyes to our crew and piled in one of these 10 person type vans for the 3 hour drive back to Caracas. We did not make it back to the airport hotel until about 3:30 in the morning. That was tough, but even more tough was waking up at 6:00AM to go to the airport!

When we got to the airport it was a very busy scene. Everyone in Venezuela was leaving for their Easter vacation obviously. It was strange waiting in line and feeling that delirious!

All in all the SA tour was a big success. The shows were awesome and it seems like SA is really a Dream Theater hot spot! It is a bit rough traveling there though because for a person like me who likes to walk around the places I visit, the cities don’t lend themselves easily for that type of adventure. Some of them seem a little dangerous or unknown (I did venture out in a couple of places though).

Now I am home and recovering from the tour. Starting to re-learn some LTE for the shows in June and the web cast for Keyboard magazine on March 27th!

That’s it for now!

04/07/2008

General Update and Piano Diary 2

Things are busy in JR land.

I’ve been buzzing about many things here on my break and very busy with my musical endeavors.

The Keyboard Magazine Webcast went very well the other day. It was exciting to do as it was a very new thing for all of us. My host was Tom Brislin who also accompanied me on some of my various riffs! Have you guys heard his band Spiraling? You should. http://www.myspace.com/spiraling. Very melodic rock that just feels good!

Even though the LTE shows are not until June, all the programming for that needs to be completed in the next week or so before I leave on a family vacation followed by the last leg of the Dream Theater tour. That kind of work is pretty intensive and I really need to get it done in my own studio at home.

For these concerts I have decided to use a Roland Fantom G. I am probably the first guy to get into programming this instrument for a concert situation outside of the trade shows so it has been really interesting. The ROM on this instrument is so large and putting layers and splits together is really pretty fun because there is so much to choose from. The Fantom G is still a different beast then my Oasys, which I still adore! I miss all the effects on my Oasys and the control I have to really get in there and do whatever I want but at the same time there is a smoothness about orchestrating my sounds on the G that I really like as well!

I’ve done about 6 of the big LTE songs now. Actually just finished When the Water Breaks earlier today and moved on to Universal Mind. In the middle of all this madness I had a really nice meeting with Dot Bustello from Apple the other day in NYC. She introduced me to LOGIC 8 which kinda blew me away. I have been really interested to start using this program and whenever I am not pressing buttons on the Fantom I have been checking out a LOGIC instructional video that I bought off of macprovideos.com. Great stuff!!!

My fingers have also been pretty busy learning some interesting things we may do for the LTE show. I dare not divulge! Also – just in case we change our minds – my lips are sealed.

05/02/2008

The tour begins...

Wow! The tour has begun! It was a crazy intense feeling to get things back together for the start of this leg.

Not only was it the first show of the tour but it happened to be in front of 10,000 people in Mexico City. I flew out to Mexico City from NY accompanied by Mr. Petrucci. I met him in the lounge and we were discussing our break and all the things that happened during it. In the middle of the discussion John said, “Oh it will be great to have a full day to review the tunes before we play this big show”...I stopped and thought about that for a moment and realized that there was actually no full day – and that TOMORROW is the show.

John looked a little pale when he realized that maybe I was right! Here is a picture of JP catching up and practicing on the airplane!!!

As far as my own work is concerned, there was a lot of prep before I left. I have no choice because it involves programming and as we are adding a couple of new/old songs to our repertoire I had to get it together. The usual list of which data to bring, saving, loading, backups etc.! Welcome to a keyboardists life.

Anyway, we got to Mexico pretty late in the evening (flight was delayed) but made it to the hotel pretty smoothly, although the roads leading to it were awful! It was fun to take all my electronics out of my bags and do the hotel room setup again! iPod, Airbook, portable speakers, iPhones etc...I decided it was time for me to also do an email change so I set up a .mac account. What a relief, it seems really reliable, and after all, I am a Mac type guy!

The next day I left for the venue a little early to do some shedding. I forgot the whole “scene” and thought I would smoothly go out the door and travel to the venue, but no. In the lobby of the hotel there were about 20 people ready to have autographs and pictures! Should I complain about that??? I was unprepared and really felt like I needed to go work...

Imagine if when you go to the office in the morning (if that is your life) and you could not get directly in the car or on the bus or train but you had to stop and take pictures with people and sign stuff? Weird, but fun life...

After a bit of thinking and logistics and minor struggling over my gear with the invaluable Robert Dorion, I settled into some good practicing. From that point with sound check and everything I did not stop thinking and shedding for many hours until I realized I was getting extremely fried and nervous! I stopped and forced myself to relax. Actually it was after JL told me that my being nervous was ridiculous considering “who I am”!...I just realized that it was ridiculous and I had to calm down and get into a more wizardly cool type of space!!!

The show went well. There were a couple of small things that happened due to it being the first night back. One funny thing is that when we started the song Constant Motion I was so excited to play this big explosion sound on the downbeat of the band entrance that I smashed it proudly but FORGOT all about playing the “song” part! I entered on the next phrase. But hey, the explosion was awesome!!!

Fast forward – fly to LA...Really good to be back in the good ol’ US of A. There are a lot of plusses for us American guys to be tromping on our home turf.

Tonight I will hook up with the original key wiz Mr. Emerson for a premier event in LA (more on that later) and then tomorrow the show!!!

Stay tuned!

05/17/2008

Tour Update

Life on the road is interesting for sure.

One of the things I really don’t like about the road is waking up in the various parking lots across America (or anywhere else for that matter).

Let me the share the events of a special morning with you. Detroit, Michigan, May 14th. I awoke when I decided that being cornered by thugs in a dark room was not the direction I wanted my dreams to be going in. Enough sleep if that was gonna be the content of my dreams! Dragged myself out of the bunk area and found the switch with bleary eyes to open up the front lounge door. I lifted the curtain to reveal a very rainy day indeed! My eyes then went to the table where there was a long note containing directions with how to navigate from this bus parking lot into the hotel. I did not have an umbrella or anything and the thought of this journey was difficult. I decided to further research the situation and open up the other side of the curtains.

This was a special view indeed! Terrorist? I saw a guy trying to light up a huge bin that was in the middle of the parking lot, 10 feet from our tour bus with all the sleeping band members. I reached for the phone and tried to figure out if I was gonna call 911 or just call my tour manager Rikk. My eyes caught a bunch of people (other terrorists?) standing under an awning by the hotel. Many of them were hlding the little red cannisters that you use to put out fires. Sorry, can’t think of what the stuff is called! Also they seemed dressed in various hotel type uniforms.

Maid, Concierge, Cook etc...The picture was shaping up a bit. FIRE TRAINING 10 feet from our bus!! Nice! Very nice. Well I called Rikk right away (and he came right away) but in the mean time I caught a bunch of pics of this huge fire going off and then the various employees putting it out! There was smoke surrounding the bus each time and I was not going out there to “talk” to them. Rikk came and lost his mind on them, which I witnessed from inside the bus. It soon stopped, See the pic of the fire at one moment from my bus window and the note that was left on the bus table with directions.

The Detroit dressing room was very special indeed so I snapped a shot of that. It was very very simple and not glamorous at all. Sorry to ruin anybody’s fantasy here!

In Columbus Ohio I happened to see a theater right by my hotel and on the billboard it said YO YO MA THURSDAY...Today was Thursday. I looked at James and said, “Let’s go see if that is really happening later today?” Sure enough it was, and we got some great seats (third row) for the show. The Columbus Symphony was great and YO YO was awesome. Such joy exudes from him in his music making process. He was a real inspiration. Every note counted. Every phrase was a beautiful musical experience with full dynamics. James and I were very happy to get a break from the loud rock world to go see this event!

Out for my walk the next day I walked by the state house and happened to come across some heavy artillery. Well-not really, but I thought this Cannon was pretty cool, so I snapped a shot of it.

Finally today we are gonna drive over to Cleveland for another rock show. Tour is going well. I’m excited that we are heading back towards home turf for me!

Hope to see some of you out there smiling!

05/31/2008

Miami Adventures!

The morning blur took us out hunting for the closest Starbucks. Like lost desert explorers our first mirage of true coffee like sustenance came up short and proved nonproductive. Upon our last breath however, we indeed did see the light. A green and white beautiful sign that could only mean one thing. STARBUCKS! (PS – I don’t drink coffee, but James DOES!)

Florida also meant some new ink for our own walking talking human exhibit of fine art! Mike got an amazing tattoo from artist Chris Garver. Here is his new baby!

Also in the news...Who needs paparazzi when the keyboard player always has a camera on hand. As part of our “not so shy” series, here is our drummer caught with his pants down at an Atlanta soundcheck. Ever faithful and talented drum tech, Eric Disrude praying at the masters feet...

I’m including a picture I took of the schedule for our day in Atlanta. Every day while on tour we receive this form telling us exactly what is going on. Everyday nobody reads it (to my tour managers dismay) and we ask lots of unnecessary questions about where we are supposed to be when!

Now I am in Orlando with my head blurry from a night on our tour bus.

3 more shows until it’s time to go HOME!!!

06/22/2008

First LTE Show!

Yesterday was the first Liquid Tension Experiment show at Nearfest in PA.

We had a day and a half of rehearsal before the show. The people at Nearfest are fantastic as they allowed us to come up to the festival early and set us up in a great little hall to have our practice time. It’s been ten years since we played as LTE but we jumped right in and started playing the tunes!

The most challenging part of the experience was arranging Rhapsody in Blue in the allotted time and getting it ready for the shows. It was pretty fun though and we actually pulled it off last night! (As if there was a choice right?)

The concert went well. We were all excited and some of us dare I say were even a bit nervous! Funny because you would think that after playing all around the world that that kind of thing wouldn’t happen to us! I guess the human being rules come into effect even in this circumstance!

It was a great venue. I’m impressed with the whole Nearfest thing. If you don’t know about it and you’re a fan of progressive rock, you must check it out. The sound in the hall was amazing, the hall is beautiful and the people were all very accommodating and pleasant to work with!

In addition my time at Nearfest was made even more special by my meeting (and hearing) some of my idols! It was amazing to meet Peter Hammil of the band Van der Graff Generator. I remember seeing them play at the Beacon theater in 1974 and it was one of the most awesome shows I had seen! Peter at one point pretended (in his very dramatic way) to drop dead on the stage. When he played last night he sounded just as strong as ever! It was a solo show with him and a guitar and a piano. Here is a picture of us together after the show.

After LTE played and we signed what felt like a trillion autographs to a VERY patient line of people, I journeyed back to the hotel and had a beer at the bar...

Much to my delight somebody mentioned to me that Gary Green of Gentle Giant was hanging out in the bar as well. Wasting no time, I wandered over there and introduced myself. Of course you all know that I am a HUGE GG fan and it was a thrill to say hi to Gary.

We had a cool talk. It was really fun for me to hook up with one of the guys from a band that had such an impact on my life! Here is a pic of me a Gary.

Today I drove home and then tomorrow it’s off to show number 2 and 3 in NYC at BB Kings before heading west to Chicago, LA and San Francisco!

That’s all for now!

06/26/2008

Half Step Hell and a Guitar Blow Out!

Last night in Chicago started out flowing very smoothly. Another day at the office until some guitarist or bass player decided to start playing in direct half steps to the rest of the band, or so I thought until it was a keyboard solo moment and that same horrendous sound continued!

It was me!

I moved the pitch joy stick...pushed and pulled all of the controllers...reset the mode and finally in desperation did a complete factory reset on my beloved Roland G 88. Nothing worked and after the reset the problem still remained. It was like every fourth key would play half a dissonant half step when I hit the key a little hard.

Wow! it really sucked. Was a terrible sounding problem! A lot of things would have been better than the instrument deciding to play half step intervals! After I realized I couldn’t do anything about this problem I left the stage and started calling all my friends from Roland trying to get someone on the phone. I emailed an urgent message to Japan as well.

Minutes later I got a call from my buddy Scott Tibbs in the US. He called Japan and then I was on the phone with the head engineer there discussing the problem outside on the street while Tony Mike and John were shredding it up inside keeping the show alive. Thank god that LTE is very much about jamming as well because it seemed like they were having a good time! This was surreal for me because I was amazed to have this problem! In 10 years of touring with Dream Theater I have never had anything as bad as that happen! In Dream Theater I always have a backup keyboard with me. I pretty much have a backup of everything I use for that. For the LTE shows obviously it is not the same type of budget so I figured for 6 shows we could do it with my one monster Roland Fantom keyboard.

Guess not...Lesson learned. I will probably never not have a backup again no matter what. That was too weird for me! Anyway after a while of dealing with the Japanese and realizing nothing could be done in the allotted time, I figured I would do a little guitar bit. With Eric’s (my tech for LTE) encouragement I went over to JP and asked if I good borrow his axe for a bit. This led to a rare but very fun yours truly guitar feature. God, how I wish I had been in shape for that! I haven’t played guitar in so many months! Anyway, had a good work out until my hand was very tired at which point I gratefully handed the guitar back to its rightful owner.

After the show and the next morning I spent a good deal of time talking with my friends at Roland and figuring out a plan to make sure that I was covered for the rest of the shows. Yes folks...I WILL have a working keyboard (or two!) for the remaining shows and even a little surprise in Downey...

The Roland guys were all very cool and helpful to make sure they did everything they could given the situation. Ya know, with technology, shit can happen, and unfortunately it does on occasion (just not to me...wrong!).

Here I am tonight in Downey CA with a brand spanking new Roland Fantom G8 on my couch and it has be tried and tested. It sounds awesome. Apologies to those who did not see a full LTE show that they expected. On the other hand I think the band played even loooonger then we would have and it turned out to be a very unique evening indeed. I’m definitely gonna practice more guitar now so if it ever happens again I can be more prepared!

That’s it for now all!

On with the show!

06/28/2008

The Transcribers!

The Downey show rocked. The transcriber boys (pictured above and below) were there in force as well as my buddy Charles Tentindo who designed the Zen Riffer. He was nice enough to bring his personal one to the show for me to use. Now that is service!

Sadly for the first tune I was gonna use it – it wasn’t turned on! Happily for the second it was!

All smiles at the end.

Lucky for all of you we filmed the whole show in HD and down the road you can expect to see at least a good portion of it!

Also, Roland was very kind and fixed my Fantom G8 really fast and also supplied a backup for the rest of the shows. Seems that in transit it got knocked pretty hard and that was my Chicago problem. The real problem I think was that I had to use a prototype hard case for it because it is so new!

Tonight is LTE’s last show in San Fran. It’s a late one and as I write this it is about 8:30pm already but I’m just hangin’ in my hotel room.

I better go and find a coffee shop to try and stay awake for the rock show which begins at 11:30PM!