One of Crook's old band mates and friend of ours, Joey Belladonna from Anthrax, had come out to the Watertown gig. It was a blast, we pulled him up on stage to sing a few songs with us during sound check. He sounded great, he went from singing Dio to Steve Perry to an Anthrax song which I didn't really know but when we were playing, Grady, Paul's Tech, was out in the audience listening and playing air drums so I was able to follow him through the song.
There are more pictures from the Watertown show on the picture page under Bat III
Last night Paul, Dave and I went out to a Mexican restaurant for dinner, right in the main street of Saratoga. As we were walking back to our hotel we noticed there were a few street musicians. There was a guy dressed as Elvis playing maracas with an old blues guy on banjo, a bunch of drummers on hand drums, guys playing acoustic guitar and so on. So Dave and I started getting into it so we ask a policeman on a horse what the laws were and he told us a good place to go play. The three of us went back to the hotel and went to the front desk and explained that we wanted to go play in the street, Dave on Sax and me on percussion and if they could loan us a few buckets. The guy at the front desk was cracking up and went into the kitchen of the hotel and came back with all these pots and pans. We ran up to my room with all this stuff and created a kit for me. Paul was funny he was running around my room taking pillows and towels and putting them inside the buckets to balance the sounds, so Dave and I took him on as our Producer/Engineer. Once we had it all together we walked back to the area where we would play. Paul was not only our producer and engineer he also became our camera man. As we were walking down the streets people were looking at us funny because we are carrying all these pots and pans. We finally found just the right spot to play and started setting up. There were a lot of clubs where we set up so there was a lot of walking traffic. Dave was great he just started kicking into all these tunes and I was jammin' on the pots. People were walking by and throwing money to us. At one point all these girls started dancing in the street, it was a blast. Check out the video that Paul captured, titled Saratoga Streets
We just finished our two shows in NYC, at the Madison Square Garden Theater. What a great reception the NY crowd gave us, with 2 sold out shows. Thanks ! We started off at sound check with Meat introducing the new edition of bobble heads to place on the drum riser. It's hysterical, he made up bobble heads of the whole band that really look like us, of course my bobble head is half naked. I really need to stop mooning people. I'm getting a bad rap. I will take photos of these at the next show and post them so that you can see them. Both shows really rocked. The set list for Wednesday was: All Revved Up If It Ain't Broke Frying Pan Life Is A Lemon Took The Words Land Of The Pigs Bad For Good Anything For Love Objects In The Rear View Mirror RnR Dreams Paradise 2 Out of 3 (Wed. only) Bat Encore Black Betty (Fri only) Gimme Shelter
I promise to post pictures of the new bobble heads this week. It's worth the look just for the laugh. Check out this video, it is the animal bobble farm Meat had in front of my drums before the new band bobble heads.
It was a great day in Frankfurt at the NFL Europa game. We started out sound checking in the afternoon. There were 1,000 cheerleaders, marching bands, pyro crews, camera crews and all sorts of craziness running around. After we sound checked Charlie (Kasim's tech) and I went out front of the venue. It was set up like a huge amusement park. I don't know what it was but there was this big mouse running around gooseing people.
I also met up with the USA Army band (USAREUR) that kicked ass. They actually performed at halftime.
Also as we were in our dressing room "The World's Fastest Golfer," Ogi, came in and was explaining to us how he holds the World Record. He has been on Letterman and all sorts of shows. Ogi was nice enough to let me video this. We went on pre-show and played five songs; Paradise, Lemon, Fryin Pan, Anything For Love, and Bat Out Of Hell. After we played we were invited to a private box at the arena where we had a blast.
There's more pictures from the NFL on the picture page under Bat III
On a day off in Frankfurt I was lucky enough to be able to visit the Sonor Drum factory. Joe Libretti (my tech) and I had been in touch with Thomas Barth, artist relations manager for Sonor, who had set up picking us up a bringing us out to the factory. Joe and I had started the day at Starbucks for a coffee where Thomas picked us up to head out to the factory. You can imagine for me this is like bringing a kid to the ultimate toy store. It was about a 2 hour ride, I think Thomas would agree that all the way up and back Joe was quite the conversationalist. I have made a short video called Trip To Sonor Just before we arrived Thomas suggested we stop for a bite, where we met up with David, the product manager. After lunch went over to the factory where we started our tour. Thomas and David explained every step of the way of how Sonor builds a drum set. We started in the room where they keep all the wood for educational instruments. From there they brought us through the room where they have the exotic laminates for the drums as well as where they actually make their own shells. It's amazing to see how they take all the thin plys of wood and glue them together and put them in a heated machine that curves them into a perfect drum shell. After taking the shells out of these machines they cut the bearing edge of the drum and also drill the holes for the hardware. All they machines are so precise it is scary. After that the drum shell is ready to be painted. There are machines that they place the shells on while painting which rotate until dry. It is unbelievable how not one shell has not even a waiver in its paint or gloss. After the shell dries they bring it into a room where they assemble the hardware to the drum. In this room they also assemble their drum pedals, where one person assembles every pedal that is made. They have a really cool pedal, the Giant Step that not only hits when you press down on the front but when your heel comes back down it hits like a double pedal. They also have Giant Step single and double pedals. From here the drums go to a room where before they are packed they are tuned by hand. Then they're packed up and sent to a huge warehouse. We also stopped by the room where they computer design and engineer every piece Sonor makes, from drum keys to drum pedals. I could not believe what goes into just designing a drum key. The thing that blows me away is that every step of the way, Sonor never ever cuts corners on craftmanship or quality. They only do things for one reason, to be the best. After this we headed over to a building where they have a Sonor Museum which we put on video. You have to see this, they had cool things, like the first double pedal, to Nico McBrain's (from Iron Maiden) first drum set.
After this they brought us to the part of the factory where they have one of every drum set and educational instruments, where we played for hours. I can't thank all of you at Sonor enough for this day at the factory, but even more for what you do every day. Check out more photos on Sonor.de and the picture pages of my website
