September 25, 2003 - Columbus, OH

This entry got posted a day late because I didn't want to keep my wife up because she was getting up early the next morning to drive down to VA to meet me at the next show.

Columbus, Ohio - home of the Ohio State Buckeyes, the NCAA Champions in football. The beat my alma mater University of Miami in the championship game. We got there early enough for us to walk from the hotel to Bob Evans to get something to eat and for me to get an additional 3 hours of sleep before bus call.

The venue, 'The Brickyard', was very cool. They had an outdoor stage where they have local bands play during the summer and they had an indoor state where they have national acts. They also have one of the coolest dressing rooms I had ever been in. Our friend Joe Arandea from Detroit drove in for the show. It's always good to see Joe.

We had a lot of time to kill before sound check because there were a lot of problems with the house sound system. So Joseph and Ted played 'duct tape' basketball and Divinity and Ted played pool. I think Ted is up on Divinity 10 to 1 in pool and he's up 8 to 4 on Joseph in 'duct tape' basketball. A couple of years ago, Joseph and I would take the duct tape off of cases that needed to be held together by it, then we would crumble it up in a ball and try and throw it into the furthest trashcan we could find. That's how 'duct tape' basketball was born! As Joseph always says, you have to make your own fun on the road! I pretty much stopped playing but I'm been watching Joseph and Ted play every day.

After sound check Victor had a meeting with Dave Love, Rob Saslow and Lynne Hoffman-Engel from Telarc/Heads Up Records. That's the label that Gerald Veasley and the Yellow Jackets are on. I was fortunate enough to be able to sit in. One of the good things about my friendship with Victor is that he lets me sit in on some of his business meetings and it's helping me to get a handle on the record industry. When we got back to the venue, Joe Aranda gave me a ride back to the hotel. From the hotel I walked to a mall that was really close by to kill some time. Some of the guys in the band had already gotten a ride back to the hotel earlier. Their ride was scheduled to come back and get them at 9:00 so I just decided to ride with them.

We started the show around 10-ish. The Columbus crowd was really enthusiastic (my wife gets on me about using the word 'enthusiastic' in every diary entry, but I don't think there's any better way to describe enthusiasm than enthusiastic!). I played what I felt was a mediocre solo, but the crowd seemed to be into it. Sometimes when we have a lot of small technical problems it takes my focus away from playing, because first and foremost, I'm Victor's tech. It's very hard to think creatively and technically at the same time. I always try to be in one frame of mind or the other, but sometimes I have to try to do both. Over all the show was pretty good, but there were some technical glitches. Afterwards we loaded up the bus and headed towards Roanoke, VA.

peace & blessings

anthony