Waxa Tour Diary - Final Entry

Good morning! Before you head out to church let me take a moment of your time to conclude my waxa tour diary.

Sitting here in the Philadelphia International Airport with Connor to my right waiting to board an American Airlines flight straight into melting heat of Los Angeles.

2 days prior we were at one of the more beautiful venues i've ever played... The Wolf Trap just outside of Washington DC. A gorgeous wooden amphitheater, tucked into the Wolf Trap National Park, it was one of those venues that hosts rock and country as well as traveling operas and musicals... A bit like the Hollywood Bowl, I guess. It had a vast backstage with pianos, a ping pong and pool table... full catering for lunch and dinner and snacks and treats of all sorts and sizes. Yet despite that it was a funky one:

We had a soundcheck scheduled from 4pm - 5pm. There was a hard cut off at 5 where the stage would go dark per Union rules... fine with me, we usually only need about a half hour tops to dial it in... but as we worked out our sounds on stage, the sound guys were having trouble with my microphone. Minutes and then more minutes passed as cables were swapped and frantic troubleshooting took place. Eventually it was sorted and we continued checking.

It was an incredible view from the stage, but didn't sound so great. The sound reverberating back towards us and we all kinda just started accepting that it wouldn't sound IDEAL... so we ran a few songs and were dialing some stuff in at 4:52 when an a very agro man from the crew came on stage and said "you guys are done. you have to get off the stage, and your production manager knows it." Huh? I said "I think we have a few more minutes." "nope, you're done. clear the stage."

I walked off in a huff, and found Greg, our tour manager... "no, you had until 5. That's what I was told."

A little while later, Greg updated me that we were, in fact... right! We had until 5 and the production manager was deeply apologetic that we were rushed off stage and that apparently it's not the first time agro man has caused trouble. I was pleased we were vindicated but disappointed that a place so professional and seemingly operating on a very high level could had such unpleasantness effect us. A real fly in the ointment scenario. It certainly wasn't a huge deal, but 7 minutes to work some sounds out is actually a significant amount of time!

The show was fine. We were on first, and people were still filtering in and the seats in the front were pretty in empty but then I saw in the way back there we a lot of people on the lawn. I found out later that the move was to get a spot on the lawn up top and you bring your own food and drinks... so it felt a little empty for me but in fact there were lots of people watching from the lawn. I started to play to them more and even got them to do the wave, which looked real good from our angle.

By the end of the set, I warmed everyone up enough to get them singing along to "Why Am I Like This?" pushing myself to the limit, at the risk of blowing my voice out. But thankfully, it held up nicely.

After the set, I bummed around, watching a bit of Snail Mail from the back of the lawn where I saw the scope and the depth of the amphitheater for the first time from the audience perspective.

Later, I had a few beers, played a little pool with the crew and listened to some kinks with the Waxa band. It was the last show of the tour with all three acts on the same night so we ended the night by gathering everyone up on the stage for a big group photo.

The next day, we drove up to Philly for our last show. On our first 2 Tim's Tour we played the Fillmore so it was familiar territory. We rendezvoused with Ellie and hit a hot spot lunch joint called Middle Child with some pancakes that... and folks I'm not really a pancake guy... blew me away.

Up on the Fillmore stage, I was thinking about Pennsylvania being such a key state in this election and wanted to do something during my set. I strummed through the first few bars of "Trump's Private Pilot" and by the second verse the band joined in with me (a song we'd never played) and locked in, watching my left hand for changes. Connor wailed a Crazy Horse lead over it and we decided we'd close the set with it. We ran it two more times just to agree upon an ending.

I came out to a packed house after Ellie introduced me as "It's my pleasure to welcome to the stage, from Allentown Pennsylvania, Temple University Graduate and my very good friend, Tim Heidecker!" We had em whooped up from the get go.

I think we had the best set of the tour - Sounded great, my energy was focused and my banter was funny.... no major tech difficulties. The crowd was alive and engaged... We closed with Trump's Private Pilot with an emotional "Screaming Justice For You All" to loud cheers.. I thanked the crowd and asked them in reference to Trump, "please do what you can to keep that motherfucker away from my kids."

After swallowing some very legit cheesesteaks waiting for us backstage, me, matt and connor went up to the balcony to watch Waxa, and I got a good seated view from the side. I knew how hard Ellie works every night during both sets, but it really hit me on the final night. Of course she kills it every night with me, rocking the bass and singing along with me, but also laughing and smiling and whooping it up, setting a really nice vibe for the audience. And with Waxa she harmonizes incredibly with Katie, with a slew of lyrically, rhythmically and high in the register parts, all while thumping that bass.

Connor and I turned to each other a few times after some particularly impressive runs like a couple of proud brothers. Go EllIe! And the crowd knew it too: she was introduced and got some of the biggest cheers of the night.

After about an hour of hanging and saying goodbyes Connor and I headed to our airport hotel - Matt would be flying out later in the day so he opted to stay in the city with Ellie who still has one more show tonight.

We arrived at our airport hotel buzzing with drunks in Pearl Jam merch (who had just played in town)

In all, I'm really happy with how everything went. I found it to be a good learning experience and opportunity to broaden the exposure of my musical side. made some new friends in the the bands... and of course I loved playing with Ellie, Connor and Matt every damn night. A little working vacation to cap a busy summer.

Thanks to everyone one of you who came out!

P&L T

 SEE YOU ON THURSDAY!