Z100 Zootopia

New York City welcomed us with a bleak, cold rainstorm. A rainstorm with which we became very familiar as we waited soggily for our shuttle to come pick us up from the JFK airport. It didn't show. After over an hour, Stacy made a phone call to the shuttle service. The service replied, "He's been waiting for over an hour. He couldn't get in to the gate, so he's around the back."

No one called to tell us this?

The only thing worse than waiting in a chilling rainstorm for a shuttle is waiting in a chilling rainstorm for a shuttle that's parked around the corner.

We made our way to the bus marked "Krystal." Their slogan was "a 'gem' of a ride!"

Kill me now.

After boarding and finally leaving the airport, the driver swerved and tailgated his way into the city. Nearly a half-hour later, we pulled over near a basketball court in what was clearly the ghetto. This was not our hotel. The driver exited the bus. He slowly walked around the side and looked closely at the front tire. Then the back tire. Then he went around the other side and did the same.

And then, without a word, he got back on the bus and resumed driving.

Okay then.

He had a strong preference for the right lane on the freeway, adding at least 15 additional minutes to our ride. When we finally reached the hotel, he parked at the entrance that was clearly marked "closed after 7pm." It was nearly 9pm.

He started pulling all our bags out of the back of the bus, when he finally heard us all screaming, "We need to move!" and "Put the bags back!" and "Why are you so dumb!?"

So he drove the van around the block to the front entrance.

Not quite a "gem" after all.

My room at the Affinia Hotel was spacious, with a full kitchen and a high ceiling, but tempered by the customary miniscule New York bathroom: you can only take a shower if you suck in your gut.

The pillows were comfy, but in case they weren't, the Affinia had a pillow menu to put that other place to shame (click photo to enlarge):
What to do when you're in New York City? Well, same thing I always do: see my buddy Ben. The two of us slogged through the wet city to some country steak joint that oddly smelled like warm brownies, which is never a bad thing. I say "oddly," because brownies were not on the menu.

I had the burger.

Just like last time, it was garbage night in the city.

I'm convinced this is an everyday sight. Trash sprawled up almost every street. And trust me, there's nothing like the smell of wet garbage in the evening air to rid your brain of brownie thoughts.

The following day, we were slated to play Z100's Zootopia. Z100 is supposedly the most widely listened-to station in the world. I'm not sure how anyone can prove this.

The festival was being held at what was previously the Meadowlands Arena in Jersey, now annoyingly renamed the Izod Center. During the tour, I grew weary of arenas with names like the Dunkin Donuts Center, the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater and the FedEx Forum. Are there any venues that haven't been bought by The Man?

We had our soundcheck early in the morning and everything went very well. I can't say the same for Jessie McCartney, who spent his entire half-hour listening to Pro-Tools tracks while his playback guy tried to fix some completely inaudible problem. The band looked impatient, and Jessie looked like he was about ready to blow.

At noon, they commuted us back to the hotel for an entire day of freedom in the city. I went to the park.

The Krystal bus picked us up again at 8:30pm and drove us back out to Jersey for the big show. Also performing, the Jonas Brothers, OneRepublic, Danity Kane and Simple Plan. We got back just in time for me to check out Sara Bareilles. I really like "Love Song." Good thing too, cause they only let her play that one tune, even though everybody else was playing half-hour sets.

After her, all the girls swooned for New Kids On The Block. Yes. That's not a typo. New Kids. And how they did swoon. Some of our female dancers (and I won't name names to spare their dignity) knew all the lyrics and were very excited to see their childhood idols all growed up (read: old and depressing) and still dancing the same dance steps. It was like Bring Your Dad To Work Night at the Apollo. But I'm happy for them, I guess. They just grabbed themselves another 15 minutes.

We took the stage around 10:30 and Miley proceeded to melt some faces. Everything went well until the song, "Right Here," when my ears went out. I looked around and noticed that I wasn't the only one. Jamie was mouthing to Stacy, "No ears!" Jaco looked at me and mouthed, "Did you lose your ears?" We kept playing despite the fact that none of us could hear much of anything, as our ears block outside sound, so when they turn off, you can't hear very well. A while later in the song, the ears came back on, and of course we were off the click, so they had to stop the click track. Again, we kept playing.

Looking at the faces in the audience, nobody noticed the numerous heart attacks that just occured on stage. Those crazy kids just wanna have a good time. And a good time they had.

One show down, one to go. Tomorrow, the big NetJets show.

DC Games

After another luxurious day relaxing at the Hyatt, we jumped in the van to make our wonderfully late 4pm call time. We showed up to an empty stadium.

After a quick reunion with our buddies the Jonas Brothers and band, we popped up on stage for the most disastrous sound check we've ever had.

The setup went well. How hard can it be to plug stuff in?


But once we started getting levels, it was your basic 72-car freeway pileup. Nobody could hear anything. I, for example, was missing the left side of one of my keboards, my vocal, the click, and Miley's vocal. Not good.

And Vish, our regular dependable sound guy, was at the mercy of the Master of Incompentence - otherwise known as "the guy Disney supplied." The Master had confused the mixing console with Whack-A-Mole, as he randomly slapped buttons and knobs hoping for some sort of accidental miracle.

Halfway through this total catastrophe, in poured the Miley fans. Tons of 'em.

Perfect.

Full of enthusiasm, they didn't seem to notice our perplexed faces, as we struggled through one roughly-mixed song after another. Eventually we got our mixes to a place that wasn't awful, which seemed about the best we could hope for.

So it was off to dinner in the food tent. While we were eating, the weather did an about-face.

The sky began pelting the crowd with the largest raindrops I've seen in ages. Grape-like droplets. I could feel them explode as they hit me. I was fully soaked in ten seconds.

But the crowd was loyal. They weren't about to go home just because of some soggy clothes. Not when they were waiting to see Miley Cyrus, and the Jonas Brothers, and the Cheetah Girls, and...whoever else was playing.

In typical fashion for these sorts of things, we were then shepherded to a room far away, where we then filled out our paperwork and sat around for several hours.

Then we got the word. We were going on early. After all that waiting, now we had to rush. We threw on our costumes and jumped on golf carts, which whisked us over to the stage. We grabbed our gear and hurried up to the wings. One of the show runners saw us and said, "What are you guys doing here? You're not on for a while. The Cheetah Girls are on before you."

But we didn't have enough time to go back. So we just hung out in everybody's way, in the wings.

Miley sauntered up about fifteen minutes later, and we had an impromptu singing jam session on the side of the stage.

We all took our places. The dancers came out in their big long tailcoats. We rocked the place out with "See You Again," and two new songs: "Fly on the Wall" and "Breakout." The crowd totally ate up the new stuff. And of course, everybody loved "See You Again," which has become quite a huge crossover hit with Disney fans and on mainstream rock radio.

That was it. Funny how these things are 98% waiting and 2%playing.

Pop Goes the Comfort Level

After two days of rehearsals in L.A., we flew to Florida for two more days of rehearsal. That's just the way we roll.

We were booked to stay at Disney's Pop Century Resort. The band and dancers were all speculating as to what type of hotel it was. "What kind of theme could Pop Century" be? Pop music? Pop culture? Popcorn?" We couldn't figure it out.

Once we got there, it became a little clearer. The decor was a mishmash of eras, colors, and random pop culture. Each building represented a different decade.

Here's the 70's building:

Apparently the Rubik's Cube was the only important developement in that era.

And the 80's building:

Is "Totally Awesome" an 80's phrase? I still use it. But I'm no gauge of cool.

After the receptionists took several years checking us in (I have no idea what took so long), I was informed that my building was all the way at the other end of the resort. This was basically the equivalent of staying in the next town. They told me to "follow the path past the giant 8-track, past the life-size Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, and around the computer pool." What is a "computer pool" you ask? See for yourself:

Exactly as described

When I finally reached my room much later, I was surprised by what I found. This was basically a motel. "Resort" is a relative term, I guess. The bed was harder that the "glorified floor" in Seattle. The walls were paper-thin, so I could hear screaming children on all sides. I was afraid of the shower.

At dinner with the band, we all compared notes on how ghetto the hotel/motel was. Everyone agreed that we were depressed about going back and sleeping there.

Stacy placed a call to our tour manager, Omar, who felt exactly the same as we did. So Omar placed a call to some higher-ups, and said we had to be moved.

No answer yet as to our fate.

We still stayed there that night (convinced that we were being nibbled by bed bugs), and the next morning we showed up stiff and groggy at rehearsal.

After we finally snapped out of our Pop Century comas, we ran down the entire show, then there was a little family jam:

That's lil' Braison Cyrus on drums. And Miley gets better at the guitar every time we see her. Jaco taught her a few new chords.

Which she learned in, like, three seconds. Smarty.

Rehearsal ended fairly early, and we were notified that we would be moving to the Hyatt Cypress Garden. There was much rejoicing. Yaaay.

The difference between Pop Century and the Hyatt couldn't have been more polar. At Pop Century, there was nothing to do. Literally nothing. And there was only one restaurant, which was basically a cafeteria stocked with fried foods. The Hyatt, on the other hand, was absolutely stunning. It had the biggest pool I've ever seen, which surrounded several man-made caves, waterslides, and a massive lake with kayaking and paddle boats. I went kayaking several times. I do love me some kayaking. There was also a full golf course and many restaurants featuring everything from bar food to sushi. Paradise. I have no pictures of the Hyatt, cause I was far too busy having a wonderful time to whip out the camera.

With a big chunk of spare time, we spent much of the day lounging by the pool, preparing for the next day's big show, which I'll tell you about tomorrow at 11:55pm. (How's that for specific!)

CMT

I'm not hugely into country music. But lately, I've been listening to a lot of it. Sorta. I'm totally obsessed with the new Kathleen Edwards record, "Asking for Flowers," the new Kim Richey, "Chinese Boxes" and the new Punch Brothers, "Punch." Especially the latter. Now, these are more along the lines of Folk and Bluegrass and Pop, really. Authentic Country music is all about the twang. I found this out first hand. At the CMT Music Awards, AKA National Celebration of Twang.

After arriving in Nashville, we discovered that Miley was sick with the flu and wasn't going to be at the rehearsal. We were worried for her, because she wasn't just singing one song, she was hosting the entire show.

The awards show was being held on the campus of Belmont University, which I attended for one semester back in 1998. That was a long time ago, but it still feels like home to me. My sister graduated from there as well, in the exact same building where we were playing. It was very strange to be back, especially since most of the friends I knew there had since moved away.

I decided to look for my old teachers in my down time. I couldn't really find any. I did, however, find Miss Tanya: the sweetest lunchlady you'll ever meet. I had such fond memories of seeing her smiling face every day. All the students were crazy about her. And she was still there doin' her thing after 20 years. And still the same incredibly kind Miss Tanya.

After waiting around for awhile, the band had a soundcheck, everybody got their levels, and it was back to the hotel.

Then I was free for the day, so I was able to go hang out with my sister Christina, her husband Doug and their friends Terrence and Tracy. We ate cake, told stories and watched a little Aqua Teens (MC P. Pants never gets old!). I see my sister about twice a year, and it's not nearly enough.

The next day, we headed back to campus, and sequestered ourselves in the Belmont Bruins locker room. This was basically the equivalent of our Kids' Choice tent. The only difference being that our tent was clearly marked as our tent, whereas it was a free-for-all claiming these rooms. Leann Rimes band members left their stuff in there, probably in an attempt to claim it. Didn't take.

Throughout the day, we met all manner of country stars: Keith Urban, Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift (totally don't understand the appeal!), Snoop Dogg (?!?) and band members in mass quantities. Of course, it was mostly lost on me, as I don't know any of these peoples' music.

One thing we all noticed was that we were terribly underdressed. We had flannel, t-shirts, sneakers, jeans, etc, not to mention our bedheads. Apparently it is traditional among Nashvillians (or Nashvillains?) to get all dolled up in ultrafancy fabrics, supergelled hair and intense makeup. And I'm not even talking about the women. It was like metrosexual central. We were alternately impressed and embarrassed for them.

After another awards-show afternoon-of-waiting (we weren't allowed to leave again), we hopped on stage, where I saw Miley looking all glowy and perfect. Apparently she was feeling a bit better. I'm sure her doctors injected her full of vitamins. I can only imagine the crash she had the day after the awards.

We played our quick little song. And that was it.

We then headed back to the hotel and met at the bar of PF Changs, where the awards were still showing on TV (for some inexplicable reason, we didn't get the CMT network in our hotel rooms -- though we did get HBO. This is kind of strange for Nashville.)

During dinner, Carrie Underwood walked in the restaurant and all the waitstaff started buzzing about it. They practically stopped serving us at that point, as they were busy ogling her from the kitchen. Of course, they didn't care that Miley's band was there. Although one of the waiters thought Stacy was some guy from Survivor.

Fortunately, nobody said anything about me looking like Adam Levine. For once.

Now that I know what real twang sounds like, I realize that just because there's a slide guitar or a banjo involved in a song doesn't make it Country. And I'm grateful. That twang'll kill ya.

2:10 pm

Wow. This Chinese Chicken Salad sure was overpriced.

I'm amazed at how much stuff I could fit in that suitcase. But I still have a bunch of homeless jackets. I'll worry about those later tonight.

Gotta hurry up and shower.

Land of the Cajuns

Last night, at the Cajundome, we dressed inside a basketball.

This is also the dressing room for the Ragin' Cajuns, who are on a winning streak, I'm told. I like the little orange outlets in the bottom left corner.

Yesterday, we were working Everlife into the show, so we had a long soundcheck/rehearsal, in which there was much waiting. So we threw a Mini Cuddle Party.

L. to R. - Miley, Jaco and Candice

They're actually laying on the stage.

Also laying on the stage, this note:

And after a long day of rehearsal and playing and driving, this was waiting for me on the windowsill in my room at the Ritz Carlton.

Dead Bird

Breakfast

Milwaukee Must Be Native American for "Awful"

After being spoiled rotten by our day off at the Royal Park Hotel in Rochester, Michigan, yesterday's day off at the Hilton in Milwaukee left much to be desired. I opened the door to my room and my jaw dropped. Not much to the room. But I continued to discover brand new disappointments throughout the day. Here are the bullet points:

• The bathroom smelled like death
• The toilet was not a toilet, it was a commode (let your mind wander)
  
• The TV had only a couple channels - no Comedy Central, Bravo, VH1, MTV, etc
• I couldn't plug in my PlayStation, cause they bolted off the connections
• The internet was $10
• The lights were all fluorescent and made a loud hum when turned on
• The walls were paper thin and I could hear my neighbors on both sides
• In addition, I was serenaded by Jaco, in the room below me, all day and all night, bellowing at the top of his lungs
  

There was one thing that impressed me though. This:

This however, turned out to be false, as I had a housekeeping woman knock on my door. Twice. Oh Hilton. Try harder.

So I thought, "well if the room is so terrible, I should probably go out." Yeah. Milwaukee's not so well known for their amazing shopping and culture. It was like a wasteland out there. And cold. So I asked about a theater. The concierge said, "we don't really have any around here." Isn't this supposed to be a city?

But now we're headed to Chicago to make up for it.

The Pillow Menu

Our final show in Worcester tonight was a giddy festival of fun. It was like the last day of school when everything is exciting and silly.

We all split off to separate buses to our various destinations (as everybody is headed in different directions for Christmas), meaning we got to ride with Ellen from makeup, Tiffany from wardrobe and Gabi from ticketing. This equals fun. We had lots of wine and bonded over all the music we like in common. We were blaring The Pixies, Travis, Royksopp, and other awesomeness for hours. It was nice to listen to something that wasn't Iron Maiden or AC/DC for a moment.

And now here we are at the Holiday Inn and I'm at a crossroads.

Upon entering my room, I encountered this:


It's like pillows in prison. How...different. But my confusion was dispelled when I saw this:

I then tested them all and found that none of them were comfortable.

Why You Should Never Drink Out of Hotel Glasses

I used to make my little Airborne cocktail every morning in my hotel room, in one of the cute little hotel glasses. At the beginning of the tour. Before I was enlightened. Before someone emailed me this video. I highly recommend you watch this if you travel at all. (To turn off the music, go to the bottom of this page and pause the player.)



Suddenly it doesn't seem so strange that I've been sick so long.

Rot-chester

Warning: This entry contains rants. Miley fans read at your own risk.

We're back in America. Hallelujah. We were welcomed by a thoughtless and mean noreaster. It didn't seem so bad, but we were hearing reports of three feet by morning.

After slogging through several miles of gorgeous snowy ugliness, we arrived at the Hyatt. It seemed nice enough.

The powers-that-be said they'd be deciding by 9am if there would be a show.

I put in my breakfast order before I went to bed so that I could wake to a delicious happy morning around 10:30.

Not so much with that.

11am rolled around and nothing. Around 11:15 a man came in with my breakfast...

Once again not so much.

It was somebody else's breakfast. My first clue was that my bill should have read $9.95, and this one said $55.

Umm, no.

I notified the man that this was the wrong order and he started complaining. "It's because of this Hannah Montana tour. They're filling up our entire hotel and it's throwing everything off." I politely(ish) told him that I was part of said tour. His face went white and he slinked out of the room with his big dumb wrong order.

So I went without breakfast. Whatever.

Then I headed to the elevator where I saw Stacy and a bunch of dancers. They said they'd been waiting for the elevator for literally fifteen minutes. They had already sent Vishon down on an elevator without his bags so he could let the elevator empty out and save it for them. He hadn't been seen for at least ten minutes.

See, apparently the stupid Hyatt told all these stalker kids where Miley would be and what time she was checking out. This basically led to pandemonium in the hotel, and all we could hear was hysterical juvenile screaming coming from the elevator shaft.

After another ten minutes, Vishon finally arrived in an empty elevator. We packed the thing full of all our bags and headed down from the 21st floor.

We proceeded to stop at every single floor on the way down, each time the doors would open to the sight of young pink-wearing little girls who were clearly disappointed to see us. Sometimes they would whine "where's Hannah Montana?" And sometimes they would just walk off in disgust. But one thing's for sure: their parents were enabling all this.

We finally hit the first floor and were "welcomed" by a wall of fans that we had to push through (haven't these people heard of moving out of the way?) and then once we got out to the buses, we had to push through another crowd of fans (with their enabling parents who were saying things like, "look, that guy has a guitar case!").

Okay, I would like to add to my List of Rules:

+DO come to the show and party!
-DO NOT come to the hotel and party.
+DO scream like a crazy person at the show.
-DO NOT scream like a crazy person at the hotel.
+DO wait outside the buses after the show (if you REALLY want to)
-DO NOT wait in front of the buses before the show.

Miley is a huge star, and deservedly so. She's very charismatic and cool. I can see why you'd want to meet her. But people...let's just use some common sense and be courteous of others.

Oh and also, shame on you Hyatt, for 1) not knowing how to handle a large group, and 2) telling little girls the location of Miss Miley Cyrus. That's just a no-brainer.

End rant.

Stranger In A Strange Land

...If by "strange," you mean "there's a surcharge for using American money." Otherwise, it's pretty much the same. Although people are oddly kind here, which I love. Nobody has said "eh?" yet, but everybody does say "oot and aboot."

I've been to Toronto before, but I mostly forget that experience as a result of a massive mindwipe.

However, some things never change. For instance, the Westin still wants $20 for a sandwich. So I bundled like an Eskimo and froze my away across the street to a tiny little deli. I got a sandwich, a drink, some soup and a muffin for $12...well, $13.52 after the "we hate your money" surcharge.

James and John

We just arrived at the delicious James Hotel in Chicago. It's like a building made of candy. This place reminds me of the Curtis in Denver.

And guess who I saw in the lobby?

Drum roll...

None other than THE John C. Reilly. I'm a huge fan. It was profound, but I won't bore you with the details of my inner experience (though I'm usually so happy to do that). Needless to say, I didn't open my mouth... We all know how I react in these situations.

A few minutes later, I was cramming myself, some dancers and our bags into the elevator. I was face up to the door. As it was closing, John C. Reilly tried to get in, but I just looked him in the eyes as the door closed.

There was literally no room in the elevator for one of my heroes.

I do wonder what he's doing in Chicago though. Maybe he's coming to our show. Stranger things have happened!

Like Royalty Frozen Over

After the longest drive of the tour so far (approx 850 miles), we're here in blustery Rochester, Michigan. I walked off the bus this morning to the delightful/alarming sight of *gasp!* snow. We all knew it was coming but none of us were prepared for it. Some of us in the band have a pair of gloves or a scarf or a hat, but nobody seems to have brought all of the above. Facing winter seemed like a far-off notion to me...yet here it is. So I scuffled as quickly as I could into the hotel, while feeling like my skin was being ripped off by the cold air. Well, okay it wasn't quite that bad.

We're thankfully staying at the Royal Park Hotel, which is basically what you'd see if opulence threw up on luxury.
I was very psyched about my room:

So I went about my normal hotel christening ritual, the bed jump:

In the middle of this, I got a phone invitation to join Candice and Jaco on a wintry odyssey about town. Despite the fact that I couldn't seem to find my gloves or hat, I threw on a hoodie and headed out. Jaco was much more bundled up:

He only looked a tiny bit like a crazed psychopath. So out we went. The impossible had occurred. The weather had actually cooled down since I was last outside. We all linked arms like schoolchildren and braved the icy sidewalks of Rochester.

[there would be pictures of snow and holiday decor here, but it was far too cold to take my hands out of my pockets to photograph anything -- so use your imagination]

Candice was looking for a specific restaurant with some sort of legendary bread, but she had forgotten the name, so we wandered for a bit and stumbled upon an oddly-named, overly-facaded joint on the main drag:

Looked good enough. More importantly, looked warm enough.

It turned out we'd accidentally stumbled into exactly the place we were looking for. And the bread was very good. Even better though...was the absolute best cup of warm cider I've ever had:

Yes, that is cinnamon on the rim, and I died a little knowing that no cider will ever make me this happy again.
Then we called a shuttle back to the hotel and promised never to go outside again.

OK

The Oklahoma show was a good time. Jamie (guitarist) took a little impromptu trip to Schmid Island today during "Old Blue Jeans," which is wonderful, however it was the worst possible spot in the whole show. That's the only time where all the dancers and the background singers are crammed all around my keyboards and they barely have room to move around. Today they had to maneuver around me and Jamie. It was very tight, and Jamie and I were laughing the whole time. The dancers seemed extremely surprised.

Hopefully Jamie won't be discouraged from taking future trips to the Island.

On the bus ride to Kansas City, I was feeling very sleepy so I basically just passed out in my bunk. To my dismay, I woke to find the band had watched "Magnolia," my very favorite movie of all-time, and I missed it. Oh well. Next time.

Now we're at a super-swanky Hyatt in Kansas City, MO. So very fancy. And ultra-decorated for Christmas. It's the most wonderful time of the year, lest we forget.

Peabody Bites It

This morning around 4am, we arrived at the Peabody: by all accounts a very nice hotel. I groggily rolled out of my bunk on the bus, far more tired than usual, and dragged my luggage up to my room, which we'll call 931.

I slide the keycard into the door. Red light. Tried again. Red again. My key didn't work. Now I realize this is ironic, given that I just finished expounding on how not pro this is. But at 4am, all irony is lost on me.

I trekked down to the front desk to be greeted by a woman (let's call her NinnyPoo) who basically inferred with her tone that I was stupid and didn't know how to properly use a keycard. I insisted that she make me another and she grumbled as she did it.

I clunkily dragged my bags back up to the ninth floor and tried again. 931. Green light! The keycard worked. I just wanted to go to sleep, but I slunk into the room, dropped everything and took my daily hotel portrait for this very blog. As I was doing this, I heard my locked hotel door opening.

This was very unusual.

"Hello?!"

It was the familiar but confused voice of Kay Hanley.

She said that she thought this was her room. And her key worked in the door. Mine didn't. We consulted the rooming sheet. They listed us both in 931. Which was wrong. We haven't shared rooms at all on this tour, and there was only one bed anyway.

So what could we do? We took a group hotel portrait. And then we called down to NinnyPoo. Guess what? I had to go back down to the lobby and have a third keycard made. I was supposed to be staying in 932.

I took the annoyingly slow elevator back down to the lobby. On the way I encountered our delightful road manager, Jack Albeck, and quickly said "They put Kay and I in the same room."

He looked me in the eye and said, "So then everything worked out."

We love Jack. Anyway, I showed the rooming sheet to NinnyPoo. She squinted at it, blinked once and said "Well, what the hell?"

She didn't say sorry. Just printed me a new card and sent me on my way. She did, however, give me a pamphlet on the history of the Peabody, just in case I was in for some late night reading about useless trivia.

Ummm. Not so much.

Would You Like My Left Kidney, Too?

I was so hungry yesterday morning when I woke at the Fairmont. I thought maybe I'd order some room service.

I thought wrong:
Yes indeed. And there's a $4 delivery charge and a 22% gratuity on top of that. I just wasn't game for a $15 bowl of Corn Flakes. Or for the $21 pancakes. Call me reasonable.

Chill It Out Take It Slow, Then You Rock Out The Show

Happy to leave the Sportsman's Lodge. Here are some fingernail clippings that were in my room.
Not mine.

I thought the bus call time was 11am, but apparently that was the departure time. Stacy called me as I was leaving my room at 11, and said to hurry hurry hurry. So I grabbed all my bags and booked it down the hallway...and fell down a set of stairs with my bags. Fortunately it was a small set of stairs. I put on a good show for everyone in the vicinity though. Like a human cartoon.

I'm very sore cause I twisted all funny, but it wouldn't be a real tour if I didn't injure myself every couple days. Rock n' roll. I'm fine. When I arrived at the bus, I discovered that we were still waiting on some other people, so I suppose I could've briskwalked instead of trucking and tumbling.

We headed out to Anaheim to play a matinee show. It's so strange to play in the afternoon because people just aren't as pumped. It's hard to get super-psyched during the daytime. Also, Miley is a little sick. She has a sore throat, but she still put on a great show. I'm so impressed with her.

The other thing about a matinee is that it ends so early, that we're all confused on the bus. We're exhausted; it feels like midnight, but it's only 7pm. Most of the guys went to bed around 10pm, which is unheard of for these people. Kay and I stayed up and listened to music, and she introduced me to some really amazing rock artists (I'm the pop guy and she's the rock girl) like Electric Soft Parade, The Submarines and AC Newman. Awesome stuff. Tomorrow night, it's my turn to introduce her to some great singer/songwriters.

We were just about to go to bed, when Wildman (our driver - more on him later) informed us that we had arrived in San Jose. It was 2am. Apparently we were listening to music for hours and hours and didn't really notice.

We all slept at the Fairmont and now we're prepping for another matinee. But tonight we get to stay at the Fairmont again, which is unusual, and so much better than hopping on the bus right away.

Day One

Today I flew to St. Louis to begin the tour. Checking in at LAX, directly in front of me in line was Malcolm McDowell. How cool is that? And he smiled at me. He's just as creepy in person...and I mean that in a good way.

Oh, I forgot to mention -- the other day on the Disney Lot, I had the best celebrity sighting. As I entered a building for vocal rehearsal, sitting on the ground talking with some people was none other than Felicity Huffman, the best actress working today. And she looked radiant.

After the flight, we checked in here at the Westin, and let me tell you, it is nice. Much nicer than what I'm used to. I have a suite-type thing and it's beautiful.

There's a rumor that we're now cutting "Clear" from the show. We've already cut everybody's favorite song from the show, and this is the band's second favorite song. They think the song might be too tonally mature for the show. I'm really bummed about this. We'll see if it's true tomorrow.