March 19, 2005 - Albany, NY

I was sleep when we pulled up to the Egg in Albany , NY . That was a shame because it's such a beautiful facility from the outside. I have pictures of it on an older tour diary page.

(well, we thought we had a picture on a prior page, but it's not there....so I'll just put one in here at the bottom of the page!)

When I woke up Dave, our bus driver, was parking in the loading dock under the Egg. We had a lot of help to load in the gear but the gear hasta' go a long distance to get to the stage. I musta' rode that elevator about 50 times before the day was over. They had a very cool guy operating the elevator the whole day. His ONLY job was to just sit on the elevator and just push buttons,….ALL DAY LONG! That is one of those kinda' jobs that you really love or you really hate. He told me that he absolutely loved doing it. He said that he made pretty good money too.

Divinity wasn't with us today. She flew out of Pennsylvania after the previous gig in Reading to go to Texas to do a ‘showcase' with her band. She later told me that her band ‘rocked it'.

I knew that we would miss her tonight but we divided her parts up amongst the rest of us. I actually got my on microphone for the show. When will these guys learn not to stick a mic in front of me. Antares auto-tune can't even fix my singing. But it's a whole lot of fun trying to sing.

Anyways,…We all just kind hung around the venue the whole day. There isn't anything walking distance from the venue because it connects directly to the highway. I check out some of the other floors at the venue. The building also contains a ‘convention center' type facility. There was an ‘outdoors' show going on. I haven't seen that much camouflage in my whole life. Of course,…I didn't last to long down there. But I did find a wall with pictures and stories on the history of the Egg. That was cool. The building looks very modern but construction started in 1966.

The show was one of the best on this tour. The band was tight. Victor called me out to do a solo with him on the opening tune. You never know when Victor is gonna' want you to solo with him. You just gotta' be willing and ready. That actually works out better for me. Because if I know before hand that I hafta' solo I'll have too much time to think about it and I'll more than likely decline.

Tonight was the first night that we showed the video before the concert. Victor had a video made to talks about the ‘concept' of the new record. I'll just leave it at that. But, I'll say this,…you gotta' see the video. It's very good. Saundra has been signing like a bird and we've been having a lot of fun on and off stage. She is a sweetheart. And she is a ‘born' singer and performer. She definitely knows what she is doing. Regi tore it up on his solo spot. Ted is doing a great job with the new lighting set up. I can tell that he likes traveling with his own lighting rig. Kurt is kicking ‘butt' with the sound. Every now and then he plays a CD of the previous night's show while we're setting up. They sound good enough to be ‘live' records.

After the show we got to mingle with friends and fans as usual. Christian Heins from Victor and Gerald's camp was there. We also saw him in Burlington . I didn't get a chance to say a ‘proper' hello to him because I was breaking down gear but we acknowledged each other with a nod.

‘Upstate Al' Marcantonio(also from Victor's camp) was there with his son. Dave Smart (also from Victor's camp) and his wife was there. Dave and I keep in regular contact through email. Tone' and I plan on visiting him and his wife in New Hampshire . Wayne Grosvenor made it out again.

After we loaded out we went to the hotel. I sorta' kinda' remember the hotel but I sorta' kinda don't remember it either. They all start to look the same after awhile. I remember staying up pretty late trying to do some diary entries. My wife and I talked on the phone for a bit but we were both very tired. I set the alarm for 6:30 am and I did some ‘channel surfing' on the TV `til I couldn't stay up any longer. Man,….6:30 am will be here before I even start snoring real good.

Peace&blessings,

Anthony
“Smells Like Funk”