We’re back at Washington’s Warner Theatre, where Crimson played in 1995, on the Thraak tour, and way back on the Discipline tour in 1981.

I’ve also been here with Peter Gabriel in 1982, and with the Crimson ProjeKCt, opening for Dream Theater, in 2012.

How do I remember those visits? Well, actually I pretty much don’t - but I’ve gone through the itineraries I still have, and entered those concerts and venues into a database - so now I can reference things.

I can see, for example, that this is about my 18th time playing in DC, the first of which was with a youth orchestra playing on the White House lawn in 1962!

(I did NOT take that photo! Don’t think I even had my first camera back then.)

I do remember JFK giving a little speech, and Jackie sitting in the front row. (My attempt to link to the audio from that is a bit lame… it’s to a .ram file from my old website and may not work well… but the end of the speech is pretty cool.)

By the way, I can also see, from those tours with itineraries, this is my 2,356th concert… so you’d think I could get all the notes right by now!!

Our promoters gave the band gifts of really nice water bottles (very sensible) commemorating the concert.

Then, one of those Spinal Tap things that happen so often on the road. Though we were located right off the side of the stage…

we had to go down to a tunnel to cross to the side of the stage we wanted to enter on

Afterwards, back in the dressing rooms, a closed circuit feed of the crew packing up onstage… Quite a show in it’s own right.

By the time I get changed and out into the theater, the party’s over!

Next up for the band are some Canadian dates, Toronto and Montreal. More soon.