Waxa Tour Diary - Bruce Day

hey gang. Here at the Holiday Inn Express just south of Asbury Park, NJ - but won't be here long as we're on the road in a few hours.

Yesterday we played the Stone Pony Summer Stage in Asbury Park, a parking lot with a huge festival stage built right behind the legendary Stone Pony, where my man Bruce Springsteen got his start... As a big Bosshead it was neat to see the club and be playing so close to hallowed ground. So much so, that days earlier me and the band worked up a cover of "I'm On Fire" to slip into our set. It played real well, and you can find snippets of it over on my Insta Stories.

Asbury Park was a nice surprise. The stage and the Stone Pony sits just across the street from the boardwalk and the Atlantic Ocean. I guess the whole strip had been revitalized recently and whoever was behind it did a fine job of it.

After loading in, Matt, Connor and I strolled the boardwalk, headed right into the convention center where Tony Soprano had his Big Pussy nightmare, and found a nice Oyster Bar inside where we lunched. Very, very good food with friendly service!

We soundchecked and it sounded great. I'm really enjoying the sound of playing outside on these big festival stages. Folks have it dialed in and while it's booming and rocking out in front of us, onstage it feels clear and crisp and like we're playing in the studio.

After soundcheck we had about and hour and a half to kill, so Elllie, Matt and I decided to take a quick dip in the ocean. It was RIGHT there, how could you resist? It was a legendarily good dip. The water was cool and the waves were just right.

We dried off and paced around a while until we made our way up to the stage and ripped through our set to a nice and packed, sun-drenched crowd. A few songs in there was a medical emergency towards the front of the stage and I called out to send a medic their way. We stopped playing and I stepped back from the mic to let the paramedics get to the young woman who had passed out. A few moments passed and I thought - 'Tim, just chill out... you don't need to say or do anything right now, just let the medics and security do their thing. no need for jokes..." once the situation seemed to under control and the woman was up on her feet I found my lane back in: "you know our sound guy Denny said to me before the show, I got a good feeling about this one..." it was TRUE, he had said that to me! And it got a nice laugh and broke the ice, allowing us to get back to work.

The set was well received by another nice mix of fans and fresh, open minded faces. but then, with two more acts to go, I had loads of time on my hands. It's perhaps the only drawback or downer of this tour... the idle time. Matt, Connor and I walked around, first heading away from the boardwalk and down to Asbury's very cute little downtown for some pizza, but it was packed so we headed back to the boardwalk where I got a cheesesteak we headed backstage and watched some of Waxa from the side... every night i'm more impressed with her songs and her band.

After the show, we headed out to our Holiday Inn Express. We checked in and then sat outside where we had a night cap of cans of Pacifico from the greenroom... Joining us were some lovely older black women who were perched on their own lawn chairs having wine coolers and smoking big cigars. They were excited to hear about our traveling circus life and they told us all about the cigar smoking in Houston Texas and how the cigar rooms are full of women these days. I had no idea!

Off to Charlottesville, VA today where we'll have tonight and tomorrow off... Idle time galore... but we'll make the best of it. Do you have any Charlottesville reccs my friends?

All for now, P&L -t