"We just past the Barbie Boutique for the third time."

Bus call was Noon. Real nice sleep. And you know what. I'm still exhausted today. I think this touring thing has just plumb tuckered me out. I slept right in and then woke up and packed. Got onto the vendor's bus to drive out to the venue. I went with Cathy and Jeff G and lots of other people. But there was this parade and we had to get around it and the bus driver made a turn he shouldn't have and next thing you know we are circling around Toronto. So a 11 minuite drive turned into an hour and we didn't get to the venue till 1PM. And I was so hungry by then it was eat now or die.

Adam and I went out and did a couple more helmet shots. One in front of Sarah's and Terry's star of fame at the top of the seats. Their stars are right beside Bryan Adam's and Bruce Allen's.

I took photos and Dayna Manning at the Borders stage (which is now the HMV stage in Canada). She is being released by Nettwerk in the US.

Then I took video of Meredith Brooks. She rocks. But everytime I got a good clip happening the docu-crew's camera would come right into my frame. I eventually got a shot, but not what I wanted.

All the artists have to wear the same outfits tonight as last night so that the docu-crew's footage matches up.

I stapled and duct taped my travel bag back together. Hope it holds.

Dinner was OK. More shrimp.

My neck hurts. My head hurts. And I'm tired. I wanna go home.

Took pictures of Jewel. This has got to be the worst venue yet for trying to take pictures. Not my best set of Jewel pictures but oh well. Some guy snuck up front with a homemade banner (It said "I'm Your Angel" or something and had these really big eyes on it) and he had some teddy bears. Big time Jewel fan. He looked out of place with everyone around him sitting quietly and listening and him jumping up and down waving all this stuff. Eventually I think security got him to go sit back down.

Denise Donolin of Muchmusic (big cheese, 2nd to Moses) is hanging on the bus with Jana. Her mannerisms and accent strongly resemble my Godmother Judy. It's kind of weird. Not as weird as Adam's clone though. The guitar player for Julia Fordham looks and acts like Adam. So today Ique pushed Adam at him. Adam was a little startled and blurted "Hey! You look just like me." The guy laughed and they just kind of talked about "Ya, you look like me." And that's about it I think. I'm not sure I wasn't there. But I'm sure it was funny. It sounded funny. So I figured I better tell you. Cause nothing really funny happened to me today. And stuff.

Sarah's on now. She's last tonight. Then I gotta edit some video for Jana and then hopefully Adam and I can catch a cab back to his hotel and tomorrow morning I catch a plane back to Vancouver. And then sleep in my own bed for a very long time.

I'm gonna wrap this up early tonight. It was fun. Everything I thought it would be and more. The mainstage wasn't the big deal, it was discovering new artists on the smaller stages. Bus life is OK. Catering is OK. Working on a tour is OK. The people are GREAT! Really nice people everywhere. That's what made this the best tour of the year. The people. The crew, the performers, the organizers, the press, the audience and most of all the people on my bus. I have to leave. I can't wait to see all my friends again at the Vancouver show next week, and I'll be all rested by then.

OK. Bye.

PS - I make CDROMs.

"Everytime I saw Jewel today she was eating dried fruit."

Ugh. Getting more and more tired. I don't know how the rest of the crew does it. I blame the weather. It rained most of the day and that does a number on my legs. Slows me right down and makes me a little grumpy. Cathy, Ique and Jana are still at full bore. And they have been doing this a hell of a lot longer than I have.

Got a good nights sleep and had a later bus call (10AM!) which was nice. No breakfast at the venue which sucked. Adam met us at the hotel. Yay! Welcome Adam. Things moved really slow for the first half of the day. What with the late bus call and then the artists and management didn't show till about 11:30AM. But a lot of people actually worked their day off yesterday. Catering food for lunch was good but they were really militant that you needed a meal ticket. Which was a minor hassle. There sure is a lot of people at this venue, a monster film crew (2 camera cranes) and lots of press and local schmoozers. Lots o lots o lots o docu-crew people. I'm sure we could have done it ourselves with a couple of those Fisher-Price cameras.

Because of the rain we couldn't shoot a lot of the b-stage and c-stage stuff. It really really rained today. Poured even. Almost like Vancouver. So after a lunch of a fajiti that was too big I went and took stills of Meredith Brooks. She was pretty good. Great hardcore guitar playing by her, and she also did great solos. I'd say she lived up to the image I saw in the video for "Bitch". The press pit is so cramped with the docu-crews lights and real press people that it was easier to just shoot from a seat in the 3rd row. I then hung around and talked to a few audience people. Lot's of people have said they actually are looking at some of this stuff on the website. It's weird cause you never see or hear from the internet audience so you don't know if they exist.

Next up was our own (Nettwerk's) Wild Strawberries. And Roberta was looking a little different. Turns out she's pregnant. Good for them, her and Ken (the keyboard player and writer) are a great couple. He's a doctor and she's a physiotherapist. The performance was great. I had never taken pictures of Roberta performing before, I loved it. She emotes a great deal and acts out the songs in a sort of pantomime that is really entertaining. They have a new album coming in fall. I can't wait to hear it.

I finally got dinner (or supper if your from sask) and it was a pasta bar. I had to suck up for extra jumbo shrimp in my pesto cream sauce. It was a little cold (the one girl in catering doesn't like me) but the strawberry shortcake with melted ice cream on top was really good.

No pinball. We are surround by amusement parks and Ontario Place and the water park and they ain't got no video games or pinball for us!

I stood at side stage and watched the Indigo Girls do their Jamboree. They invited all the other artists of the day on stage to sing "Closer to Fine". But wait, before that Sarah and Jewel joined them for a performance of "The River is Wide." They worked great harmonys together. It was kind of neat watching everything from backstage. Even Greg Keelor was back there, with his glasses held together with hockey tape. But you know, backstage is not the place to watch a show. Definitely not. Cause all you see is that back of everyone's head and the sound from the speakers is pointed away from you. I mean, think about it, the whole purpose and direction is at the audience. Backstage sucks. Everything you've heard or that about how wonderful backstage is wrong. I know all this sounds a little pretentious, but it's true.

Met Jana's husband today. Nice guy. Not what I excepted. I thought maybe, oh I don't know? Maybe bigger? You know, bouncer size. I have no idea why I thought that. People get weird images in their heads and be being such a weird guy and all, you know.

And Jeff G is here and Kim and Dave and Terry and Shauna and Pierre and Mark (somewhere) and Sondra and Frank. So who is left in Nettwerk Vancouver? Oh. Hi Carolynne!

Ique was real nice and covered Jewel for me. I'm just too tired and sore today. I'm gonna sleep tonight.

A nice girl who I think I have a crush on hugged me tonight. 3 times! But I think she's just that nice to everyone. Oh well....

One more day in Toronto.

PS - Where are these press people who kept saying Lilith would be a great place to meet girls? I wanna talk to them!

PPS - Did I mention 2 TVs?

"The original Batman! Wow!"

So I woke up at the venue rather than the hotel. Which sucked cause we were supposed to show up at the hotel first thing in the morning. But the rooms weren't ready and there was no parking for the buses. So I had a liquid breakfast (Guinness) and went back to sleep. Everyone else scoped the venue and had breakfast. Finally around noon a runner (a guy with a van) took us to the hotel. Only Cathy's room was ready so we left our bags in her room. Her room was an executive suite with living room, fax machine, 2 fridges, free popcorn, and a monster bathroom. We figured she had a nice room cause she was sharing it with Terry (former Nettwerk President). Ique figured she'd have a room like that too, I bet her $20 that wasn't going to happen. Even fact I even guffaed at the idea of it.

So we headed out down Yonge street then over to Queen. We did some minor shopping and I stopped at some lame market for a flaffel. It's made of deep fried chick peas in a pita. I never had one before, it was really good. Jana's friend Judy from Muchmusic gave us a full tour of the facility. It is really really really small. The building used be the United Church headquarters. All the desks are acutally in the studio, pardon me, the environment! Cause Moses wants it called an environment, they can't use the word studio. There is an acutally studio area with seats but they have to call it the S-Room, you can't say studio. So that's why the vj's always say "environment" so weird like. They have these neat fire hose taps all over that are actually connections for the cameras so you can shoot from any where.

Oh yeah. We went to a really neat candy shop before Much. They had a great selection of Pez, walls of them. I bought a complete set of smiley Teenage Mutant Turtles and 3 of the snarly turtles, I'm missing the purple one. And the original black cowled, shorted eared Batman! I almost got it for $2 but then he noticed it and charged me $12 instead of $15 which was really cool cause I've seen it for $25. This is the most I've payed for a Pez.

I left Cathy and Ique (actually they left me) and went to a sci-fi shop with a full size statue of Spawn in the front window. It was really cool. The shop was OK. Checked out some electronic stores and went back to get my room. At 3:30 I finally got a room, of course the maid was still making it up. So I went to Tower records and looked at books about piercing and stuff.

Then it was back to my room for a long nap. Ique called me later and we went out for dinner across the street. Our waitress was a ringer (probably was her) for a child star from the 70's who only did real lame CBC kid's shows (she was a kid then). And Okey and Dokey (crew guys) at the table next to us were able to pull the security strip out of a $100 bill with their teeth. Amazing skill.

I went back to the hotel for TV and sleep. Ique went and saw Holly McNarland and then suffered a painful lingering death in a car crash on the way back to the hotel. Just kidding. I'm just pissed cause I didn't go and it sounds like it was great.

Tomorrow is the first of 2 Toronto shows. And then home.

PS - Did I mention that my hotel room has 2 TVs?

"Well, the venue sucks, the weather sucks, the crowd sucks but it's good to see you Malcolm."

We are at the top of a ski hill. And it's all mud and rock and rain and a bad layout for a venue. I should have known what kind of day I was going to have. It started with my alarm going off, my head slamming into the bunk above me and me saying "Shit!". And I woke up Jana.

Breakfast was iffy. I mean geez, I'm in a ski lodge. The stage was set up in front of the big windows of the dining area. At the bottom of the hill. The layout of then venue was all wonky, the gravel was so loose you couldn't push the road cases. And so loose that the mud came through. There was a neat basketball minurature golf course type dealy. It was really cool. I took way too many photos of it. And there was a little water slide, it wasn't open though. And the security was all screwy. I walked in and out of the press conference with out seeing a single guard.

I covered Julia Fordham for Cathy cause her and Jana were busy chasing Lisa Loeb and Sheryl Crow for interviews (which thanks to the docu-crew wasn't easy). Julia is British and had a great vocal range, I described her as Everything but the Girl meets Swing Out Sister (where did they go? she was great?). And the guitar player is Adam's long lost older brother! Even his mannerisms while playing were the same! I liked them, they were good.

I shot Patty Griffin on the main stage. Regular still shots. Then it was Lisa Loeb stills on the mainstage. It was her last night. I covered for Cathy cause she was still chasing those interviews (darn docu-crew). I got some really nice pictures of her glowing with the sun behind her. First time I had a use for the "sun & ski" filter. Bye Lisa. You're nice too.

Pretty much everyone is nice. Some more that others.

I shot video of Shawn Colvin. Bad lighting.

Oh yeah. Stupid audience story. Ique shot Yung Chen and came back to the bus very very upset (which makes me mad). It seems some young girls were being very rude and very loud during Yung Chen's set. Completely undoing all I had observed days past. Ique tried to explain what Yung Chen's message was. They'd have none of it. Rude drunk young girls. So I went out to shoot Shawn and while I was filming the one drunkest girl grabbed me by the shoulder (ruining the shot) and yelled in my ear that I should give her my crew jacket (those jackets sure are prized). The security guy grabbed her away. Just when you think everyone is nice, someone who isn't nice makes the point of showing you that everyone isn't nice.

I took stills of Jewel. Same as last time.

Then was eat bad catered chinese-american food and hide in the bus and process a record number of videos and stills.

Oh. It rained like crazy today. In bursts. About 3 times or so. I stayed inside. And it didn't rain during my shifts. Which isn't really lucky. Cause if it did rain I wouldn't have had to work my shift.

We are leaving early tonight to head for Canada. We are going out in a convoy with police escort that is for Jewel and Sarah. It's kinna neat but it puts us in one big hurry.

This is one of the weirder longer more miserabler days on the tour.

I should sleep well.

PS - The pinball games were Funhouse and some other one. But by the time I got a chance to play them they were both broken. We I did have time to go play them Sarah and Camilie (in full costume and sound rigging) were playing them while doing vocal warmups. And they were surrounded by the docu-crew. It seems the docu-crew thought it would be a cute shot. Not so good for my pinball playing though. It was Funhouse! And I didn't even get one game!

PPS - On our way out Sheryl's bus driver called Sarah's bus and asked for Sarah. Sheryl raved about Sarah's show and her amazing voice. And of course Sarah thanked her for playing the show and said "All right girlfriend, see you next time!". Two major stars thanking each other over the CB while their buses pull out of the venue under police escort. Neat huh?

"That is the coolest thing anyone's got on this whole tour!"

I was first on the bus this morning. Well, Ique and me. I couldn't sleep last night. I was up at five. Yeck. So I got on the bus and took some painkillers and went back to sleep. Only after walking up and down the street with the helmet. The wonderful wonderful helmet. How could something so silver and gold bring so much joy into my life? The helmet rocks.

Waking up is a hard thing to do. My goodest friend Jill (Hi!) once said something very profound (specially since I just woke her up) she said "Sleep. Whatever. I mean, you get it once a day.". I wasn't feeling all that great all day today. I think it was the take out food last night. I should have went out with Ique for a proper dinner.

So this morning Ique and I went out for a wonderful photoshoot. The pictures pretty much explain themselves. But let me just say that the general public's reactions were great. All the crew loved the helmet (see quote above). This made up for the dress (sarong).

Holly McNarland didn't show today. Sad. I had hoped to see her. Maybe tomorrow. Sheryl Crow started today. She wasn't at the press conference though. I covered a new artist today, Liz Berlin. I'm getting a little burned out and today was super hot and I was stomache achy so I didn't really listen but I should have and oh well maybe next time and everything (Hi again Jill! Hee hee).

Jana and I did an interview with Yung Chen today. It was amazing. We went behind the venue to some picnic tables by a large pond. She and Jana talked about Yung Chen leaving Tibet, her difficult childhood, the value of freedom, the gift of her music, meeting the Dalai Lhama, reviewing one's actions evernight before sleep, reviewing one's dreams every morning, and the value of prayer. Jana and Yung Chen got a little teary eyed while talking of how Yung Chen had no real childhood, how she had to work. At the end Jana asked Yung Chen to sing a small piece for us. She explained the prayer and then sang it while looking straight into the camera. She was looking right at me, singing inside my head. It was the most inspirational moment of the tour. I've had the tinglies up my spine when listening to Sarah sing. But this was different. It wasn't the tinglies (which are amazing unto themselves). This was more peaceful and full of awe. I felt drained afterwards. I don't know why.

After the interview as we were walking I made sure to tell Yung Chen how impressed I was that she was able to get her audience to be quiet. Every other show here there is always someone gabbing to someone else. This sometimes bugs me when I'm watching an artist, worse when I'm trying to tape them. But when Yung Chen sang (all by herself) everyone just shutup. Which made me very glad. And I wanted her to know how impressed I was and that she should be proud. Well...she knows she has this power. She told me of when she played in a drinking pub. She was told that the people would probably keep talking and be loud. She said they weren't. Jana had asked her in the interview about how she felt about this loud american culture. She said that inside is quiet, you can find quiet anywhere. Or get up at 5:30AM like her. Funny lady. :-)

Lisa Loeb is on the B-stage now. The documentry crew started filming today. They are very important people with very impressive gear and important things to do. They are very busy and there is a lot of them. And they all wave and point and gesture with ringing cell phones or clipboards. And they call everyone "guy". To shoot Lisa Loeb there was: A camera man, sound man, cable puller, two ladies in black with cell phones, 3 guys with wireless headsets, and one important looking guy with a headset and radio and cell phone. And then there was just me with my little digital video camera the size of a pack of smokes. At one point the documentry camera was standing right beside Lisa on stage. She didn't see him. She turned around and was surprised. "Oh!" she said in her animated voice, "I have an uninvited guest up here with me. I don't know if I like that!"

I was sitting on the ground to the side of the stage.

Taking some nice pictures.

Quietly.

Catering. All right I guess. I had a upset stomach. So what ever.

"Operation Wolf" shooting video game and "Hook" the Movie pinball game. Not bad. Better than yesterday.

Sarah played at 7:00PM today. Before Jewel, Sheryl and Indigo Girls. It was weird seeing her play in daylight and so early. Normally the rule is no drink before Sarah's last song. I think it threw her, too. There was some mixup at the beginning of the set. But she was great and I once again got some nice pictures.

So then I tried eating some more which was iffy.

And then...in the middle of Jewel's set...a serious thunderstorm hit. Lighting crashing and a monster downpour. And the crowd goes wild! And Jewel tries to play a quiet slow song. She even shushes everyone (she shushed me! Hi Sandy!) and said that if the person next to you makes noise to hit them. In the middle of a thunderstorm? I don't think so. The crowd goes wild!

Ique and I headed out to check out the storm. Even with my raincoat I ended up with two serious soakers for feet. It was wet. Really wet. So I came back in and chilled in the back to some music and worked on video clips. And danced in my helmet.

I bought a nice big Jamaican cigar (not Cuban, this is the US you know) for $3 today. Saving it for tomorrow when I feel better.

Need a good sleep tonight.

And a big greasy breakfast tomorrow. No more coffee. I think it makes me sick.

PS - My gameboy watch got wet in the rain and died. I blew air into him to dry him out (mouth to watch). But he was dead. So I mourned him. But then, a few hours later he was back. And he said it was "11:07".

PPS - Kinna like Bob's virtual pet huh? But mine tells time and has been alive for over 3 years.

"Roast Beef slow-roasted for three hours is our way of saying 'Thanks for stopping in'." (what would they do if they didn't like you?)

Pittsburg. And I was the first one up. So Malcom (bus driver) and I went for breakfast at the hotel. Too posh and too expensive. We talked about the success of the tour and the planning of it. And we talked of next year. That's a long way away in my mind. While we were eating Camilie came in for "a milk and a bagel with just a little butter, to go.". She chatted with us briefly. She's nice. (I'm seem to be saying that a lot about a lot of people. Which is nice as well).

Ique, Jana and I headed out for a second breakfast. But before we got anywhere I stopped at the window of a surplus shop. And I saw the helmet of my dreams. It was beautiful. But I was sure it was beyond my reach. But Jana convinced me to go in and ask about it. As soon as I had it in my hands and heard the price...well...I was in love. I smiled for at least 4 or 5 hours after buying that helmet. And I still makes me and others smile today. Looks for photos under Aug 12.

Cathy hooked up with us in a real nice coffee shop. They had a great vibe in there. There was this book sitting on shelf beside our table which you could just scribble and write in. I drew a picture of my self in my new Homer Simpson helmet. Someone had written a very sad story about her unborn child and the father's denial. And there was a very talented pencil drawing of the virgin mary.

As per trip tradition Cathy led us all over Pittsburgh. We went across a bridge to the old train station. It had been turned into a resturant and tourist mall. the resturant had high ceiling and stained glass windows. Posh and wonderful. So timely. The mall had a cool art place where there was a robot warrior made of scrap metal in the window. Very cyber. I kept saying that I had his helmet. Then again. I kept talking about my helmet all day.

We took a inclinator/troley/sky ride up the side of the valley. A buck each way! But I kept one of the tokens for a souvenier. The view at the top was nice. And we did a little shopping up top. I bought some painkillers and a indiglo travel clock. So did Jana. Did I mention I bought a really cool helmet?

There was a ruccus in front of our hotel. The visiting football team for that night's game had just checked in. The local fans were hassling them. Lots of cops there telling people to go home or go to jail. It wasn't really a nice neighbourhood around the hotel. A few scrawny herion girls hanging around. Yikes.

Earlier we shopped a bit with Jennifer the lighting girl (also known as Daisy). We looked at hair products and stuff. There were colones for men in packaging that looked like booze. Some were even called Rum scent.

I broke off from the shopping team and headed to my room for a night of really bad Arby's food, beer and HBO. I didn't sleep very well. Oh well. New acts tomorrow. Should be fun.

I asked Dan Fraser (the tour manager) this morning if he was pulling a trick on us. I figured that this shed is the same as 2 days ago. They are all starting to look the same. I don't really know where I am. Hang on, let me check, oh yeah, I'm in Columbus, Ohio. Not that I can tell. It's overcast and hot and muggy. At first they weren't letting people out into the stadium area. So the village was packed full of people and it was hot. It was starting to smell like sweaty people. Not a nice smell. And it was tough getting from the bus to any of the side stages.

Woke up a little a late. I am used to sleeping on the bus, it's not really a problem once exhaustion kicks in. And waking up in a strange place every morning has become second nature. Trying to figure out where the food and washrooms are is easier. But I was really really tired all day today. I've been running on empty. Which is OK, you just kind of cruise along. When you are this tired your concentration comes easier. It's like doing an allnighter all week. This day 5 of a 5 day stretch is quite tough. I'm going to be just sitting in my hotel room tomorrow. The plan is to listen to my walkman while sitting in a steaming hot bathtub with a six pack of bud in the toilet tank chilling. And then sleep till the end of time. And a big meal at a nice resturant of what ever food I want. I think I'm in Pittsburgh tomorrow. I don't know a damn thing about that town. But I guess I'll find out tomorrow.

I more or less missed breakfast. But I had a couple of doughnuts and some yogurt to offset it. I shot video of Yung Chen today. Her story of walking out of the mountains of Tibet and finding the Dali Llama is amazing. I tried to get the team today to boycott the Mainstage. In support of Tibet we would not cover any of the mainstage artists. I was kidding. Yung Chen's music is on the Real World label. Editing her footage into a 30 second clip was easy cause I don't where the verse or chorus are. So I just edit what sounds nice. I think I said this before but her melodies are very linear.

At the last second I had to cover Michelle Malone. She rocks. The crowd loved her. And then was Patty Griffin and then Emmylou (whose name I always spell wrong, but I think Lane/Cathy have been fixing it for me). And then Jewel. I got to wave at Dave Reveli while he was playing. Jewel was in a nice suit jacket and a pair of short shorts. I caught of couple of young crew guys gawking at her while she was walking to the stage. I laughed at them openly and they got all embarassed.

Today all the artists seemed to run together in a big blur. I'm really tired and just want 2 things. To finish my diary tonight and for Sarah to start her last song (no beer till the last song). I did 3 video clips and at least 65 stills. I got good stills of Jewel. I didn't take any shots of the shorts though, not like some other amature photographers.

No video games today. But they had an old foozball table today. And the girls were on it all day. Cindy who works in the Village crew is the spitting image and attitude of Lucy Van Pelt. She's cute. And I know her boyfriend who is a nice guy and great with lights.

Catering at lunch was iffy. Dinner was fajitis. Which I liked. And good fruit dessert. They had a TV in the catering area showed the Movie Channel and then the show when it was on. It was nice to see someone else's camera work of Lisa Loeb. They had the same problems I did. She doesn't move much so you end up with a pretty still boring shot. She's not boring, just the shot is.

I overheard a lady ranting away to someone about the wonderful website. How it was the best she had ever seen and how there was just so much stuff on it. She was very impressed with how it was updated all day. She actually had colour inkjet printouts of all the pages. I butted in and asked her if she was talking about lilithfair.excite.com and she of course was. I told her that I was just running back to the bus to upload the pictures I had just taken. She was impressed. So was I. People are actually out there reading and viewing this stuff. Creating the content feels so much like throwing out a message in a bottle. Except I'm in a bus not on a boat.

EmmyLou's leaving tonight. All her crew people kept dropping by to say goodbye. I wasn't around that long, but I did get to know some of them. They sure were nice people. It was hugs all round. It was like when one of the visiting family of relatives was leaving at Xmas. Everyone had to get a hug goodbye in.

I spent at least 2 hours glaring at a computer screen with Prodigy blasting, just firing through all the video footage and stills I took today. It was a mind buster.

I've got a hankerin for some popcorn tonight. Weird. Probably once I smell Cathy's first batch I won't want any. The smell of hot edible oils turns my stomach.

Next year I'd like a notebook like this one, a digital palmcorder with instant still capture and a firewire connection to the notebook. And also a pocket mic and mixing kit for doing audio into the palmcorder. One last thing, a digital cellular modem with a phone company sponsorship for free time. I figure with that gear I'd be a one man reporting show with everything I'd need to collect, edit, process and upload to the Internet. And I could do all of it from a seat in the bleachers. (Forget it Jay) Ah, to dream, perchance to sleep.

Where's this quote from? "Sleep now. Telephone later."

It always makes me think of Skinny Puppy.

And I'm one really tired rambling sleepy puppy right now. I can't believe I wrote this much for today when nothing actually happened.

Goodnight.

PS - That was the last song just now. It's beer time.

PPS - Nix that. Jana just showed up with a clip of the last song that she wants me to edit and upload. Oh well. Maybe I'll sleep tomorrow.

35,000 people and it's a sold out show (Cathy said I could start a sentence with a number so I did). Weather is overcast and a little cool. So I wore my raincoat all day. And I told everyone that I was wearing it as a sacrifice so it wouldn't rain. And it didn't. I like it when I'm right. Just recently the venue was completely flooded by rain. There is still water and guck in the press pit.

Big venue, nice layout and cool skyboxes. Not as nice as the ones at GM Place in Vancouver but still cool. With your own fridge and couch and a guy to bring you drinks. You order drinks just like Whitespot resturant. You flick on the porch light outside your little balcony room and a guy comes running. The shower in the men's room was reasonably clean, which makes life real nice.

My laundry came back last night with white fluff all over my nice black shirt. I really hate that. Normally when I do laundry I have to worry about black fluff on my one white shirt. I guess my laundry went in with the white towels.

It was a light day for me. The TBA in the village was Camille again. She is so nice. I act like a 5 year old around her and she treats me accordingly. I feel like she is my babysitter. And sings like an angel. Aren't you record company execs listening to me? (Not likely, jay) Get on this!

Sarah joined Michelle Malone (she also plays with the Indigos) for a song. It was on the little Village stage. People went crazy. It was a huge crowd surrounding a tiny little place. Poor Cathy had to shoot it. It was really neat watching security make a path for Sarah to get into and out of the stage area. Terry McB and Dan were on the case. It was truly amazing to watch. It was choreographed so well it was like ballet. And GI Joe (who's from Texas, he spent 15 years away from Austin to discover he loved it there) is a great security guy. And he's Willie Nelson's personal stunt double.

YungChen Lhamo is an amazing Tibetian singer who looks the part. With her long hair and robes she looks like a princess. She performs alone, explaining the story of each song before starting. One song was about being wholesome, kind and wise. Therefore (as she said) it was about the holy one. I sat behind the stage on a little grass hill and just listened. It was inspirational. Such pure tones and linear melodies. Sarah and Emmylou were also behind the stage listening. I was so glad to see the crowd behaving themselves and just standing there and listening. I hope this opened some young people's eyes to different kinds of music. (Just as mine were today and all the other days on this tour. ie: I can't believe I now own 2 country music CDs.)

Pinball report: Ms.PacMan (story on that later), a racing video game and a world cup soccer pinball game (It's FIFA Ric!). The racing game seems to be the big hit.

Catering report: It was alright. But dinner was pastas with tomatoes. Great. Not exactly my fave. Oh well.

Rider report: Same as every single night. Microwave popcorn (that we are not supposed to have on the bus), cans of nuts and fruit, bottled water and six beers for me. Tonight once again is Heineken. Which is fine by me. Cathy gave me a big talking to last night about how we've been getting crap beer and we should get some nice microbrews. I tried to explain that most microbrews are an aquired taste for some. But she wasn't having any of that. "So people who don't like it don't have taste then do they?" I think it went something like that. It was late. I like beer in general. Whatever.

Ran into Dave Reveli from Jewel's band in the bathroom. It was like "Jay! Dave! Where the hell have you been?". Dave is in The Grassy Knoll (who rock! Go buy all their CDs now) and we've hung out in SanFran and New York. We are supposed to go for Tacos one day. He is the funnest drummer I've ever watched. He gets so into it. I love watching him play.

I taped Sarah's set tonight. At one point (right after a solo) the guitar player Sean gave me the thumbs up and a smile. It's kinna cool when one of the artists notices you in the press pit. I got some great shots of Sarah and the band. I think that is one of my favourite parts of this job. Sarah, her band and Graham's lighting are so much fun to work with. I wish I knew more about photography.

Another time change tonight. One hour ahead. So it's already late. And tomorrow is off to Columbus. And it is supposed to rain. So I better wear my raincoat. And it's day 5 of the 5 day stretch, then a day off! Looking forward to it. I need to buy a new watch.

I saw a Smashing Pumpkin today. So I guess that is a Celebrity Sighting. Whatever.