February 10, 2004 - San Francisco, CA

I can't get over how breathtaking the view is from our hotel suite. I hung out on the balcony for a while just taking in all of the sights. Derico knocked on the door from his side of the suite. I let him in. He was amazed at how nice the whole suite was. His side was a complete hotel room on it's own. But my side was composed of 2 rooms - a living room area and a bedroom. We were both supposed to share the living area but I kind of figured he would just want his privacy. I had knocked on his door a couple of times yesterday to let him know that the space was available for him, but both times he wasn't there. We decided that we would go across the street to the Eatery to get some breakfast before bus call. We ended up going to the same place that I went yesterday. We went straight from the restaurant to the bus.

After everybody got onto the bus we headed to the venue. We drove across the Bay Bridge into downtown San Francisco. I pointed out some of the sights that I'd seen yesterday to Divinity. She actually went to college across the bay in Berkeley. We arrived at the venue too early to load in. The Great American Music Hall is in a very interesting part of town. Right next door is a place where they have live sex shows. Tonight they were featuring lingerie boxing. It got my attention because lingerie and boxing are two of my favorite things, although I don't think they go together very well. Across the street is an adult video store. After the venue personnel arrived we got the gear loaded in and set up. Our friend John Costelupes picked up Sandra Williams for us. Sandra is a singer that's featured on Victor's CD that's soon to be released. She also sat in with us at the show in NYC. Victor flew her in to do the following 3 dates with us. Victor hadn't arrived in town yet which meant that I would have to play during sound check. Whenever he doesn't make sound check I'll play with the guys so we can get all the levels for everyone's monitor. It's fun for me because I get to pretend to be the start for a couple of minutes. He showed up later with Jon and Doniga from the Riekes Center. Peter Bergen, who I hung out with yesterday also showed up. His stepson, Rusty, was there too. I heard so many great things about Peter's stepson yesterday, I was glad to finally meet him. By the way, Ted scored 2 more points in duct tape basketball.

Our front of house engineer, Kurt Storey is known for making funny pictures by superimposing people's heads on other people's bodies. He's made some hilarious pictures. Now our lighting director, Ted Atwell has started doing the same thing buy with members of the band. During sound check I heard our tour manager, Danette, break out into a laughter I had never heard before. She was laughing so uncontrollably that I thought she was going to stop breathing. Ted had superimposed a picture of my face onto a picture of Kurt Storey sleeping on a sofa at one of the gigs. The picture of my head was proportionately bigger than the picture of Kurt's body, so it made the picture very funny. Ted even put Kurt's hair over my bald head. The picture is so funny that every time I think of it, I start to laugh. Ted later did a picture where he superimposed Kurt's face onto Derico's body that is as funny, but it's a little scary too. It looks like a serial killer. The band is considering doing these kind of pictures for our next set of band laminates. My stomach starts to hurt every time I think of the pictures, that's how funny it is.

Tony Bullocks from Bass Camp showed up. I was glad since I didn't get to see him yesterday. He agreed to run me to the Ducati dealer in San Rafael after sound check. The Ducati dealer closed at 6:30. We didn't get to leave the venue until 6:00. It was probably a half hour ride, so we knew we'd be pushing it, but we figured we'd try anyway. We sped through downtown San Francisco and across the Golden Gate Bridge, and we still had another 16 or 17 miles to go. When the clock in the car hit 6:30 I wanted to suggest that we turn around, but Tony believed that they would let us in even if we were late. I didn't have as much faith as he did, but I should have known better. We arrived at the Ducati dealer around 6:45. There were 2 guys out front. The door was open, but the lights inside were dim. I immediately jumped out of the car and pleaded with the guy that he had to let me in. I told him I came 3000 miles to check out his shop. He laughed and said, "If you came that far, then I guess I should let you in." So Tony & I walked in and checked out all of the bikes. The guy who let us in was named Jim -- I didn't get his last name. I figured he was high up in the food chain since he had the authority to let us in. I talked to a couple of the salesman as Jim and another guy brought the bikes that were outside into the showroom. They even agreed to leave the registers open if we wanted to buy something. Here's a link to 'Ducati/Triumph/Yamaha of Marin'. Tony wanted to buy me and my wife shirts as a sign of appreciation for his Bass Camp experience. The shirts were very nice - and they were expensive too. My wife, Toné & I greatly appreciate his generosity. We were browsing around the shop when I realized that it was time to get back for the gig. Neither one of us really knew the way back, so I was a little anxious, but we made it back in time.

I ran to the bus, changed into my gig shirt and ran to the stage to tune the basses. I ran down to the dressing room and did 50 push ups. Push ups are my pre-show ritual. As a matter of fact, you can catch a couple of the band members doing push ups before the show. I know that Divinity does them, so do Joe and Victor. In Portland, Joe and Victor showed me a very cool way to do push ups together. We formed a diamond on the ground with our bodies with each of our feet being at the other person's head. Then we placed our feet on the person's back just below his neck. With the person's weight of his body on our backs, we all did 25 push ups. That was very cool. I love doing push ups and sit ups.

We played a great show. We have a lot of good energy in this place. This is the place where Marcus Miller sat in with us. Some of that performance is on the Live in America CD. Sandra sang her ass off! I wasn't really happy with my solo. It wasn't bad, but there were some technical issues on the show that kept me from being totally focused on expressing myself. Most of the time before a solo I try to think of my grandmother and my wife to get me in the proper frame of mine to play an 'expressive' solo as opposed to a 'chops' oriented solo. But when I have technical issues to deal with on stage, that is my first concern since I'm Victor's bass tech. Scott Taporco told me later that he thought I played great. He said he knew what I was trying to say and what I was trying to express. That made me feel good because I respect his playing so much. He's one of my favorite players to come out of the Bass Camp. I think I'm at a point where I realize that I probably sound better than I think I sound. But it just doesn't feel that way when it's 'rolling' off of my fingers. I know that you guys can relate. If I heard my solo months later on a recording and didn't know who was playing I would probably be impressed with it. As a matter of fact my wife got an email from Garey Noble from Hawaii after the show. He couldn't make it but he had some friends that did. This is an excerpt from the email she received, word for word.....

"Oh yeah...a few friends of mine caught the VWB shows in San Fran and Hollywood...both got rave reviews...but nearly all of my friends used the same phrase to describe Ant's solo's...and I quote "wow...not taking anything away from Victor, but his tech Anthony came out and played the tastiest 5 minutes of bass I've heard in a long time...maybe ever!" Seriously...this is the exact working that came out of a few of my unrelated friends!!! Way to go Anthony!!!"

After the show we conversed with what seemed like hundreds of friends and fans. Scott Taporco had a lot of his students there. Another great Bay area bassist, Victor Little, was there. Jon, Doniga, Chris and Rusty from the Riekes Center were there. Peter Bergen stuck around and helped me carry basses out. Tony Bullocks and Luis Garcia were there. Luis won a scholarship to the Bass Collective. He was telling me that he and Edgar Pagan are probably going to go in August.

After the show Sandra went shopping for some stuff that she needed. After she didn't show up we got worried. So Derico, Regi and I went searching for her. We were getting worried because we were in a kinda' seedy part of town. There were so many shady characters and prostitutes around, that we made a point to look for her instead of waiting for her to show up. After she finally showed up we went to the hotel to shower and headed out on our way to Los Angeles.

I absolutely enjoyed my stay in San Francisco. I look forward to coming back to visit.

Here is a picture of the inside of the Great American Music Hall...

...., and the picture of my head superimposed on Kurt's body. Be prepared to laugh your ass off!

peace & blessings

anthony