This has been a fantastic tour, for audiences and for those of us in the band. Sad to see it ending, of course, and you’ll forgive me for taking more pics than usual today, including some of the crew, who’ve done a fantastic job day after day.
It’s an odd rock touring thing, that you spend all your time together for weeks and months, then one day it’s the last show and you can only hope you’ll see everyone again, crew and band members - you don’t really know. So, this was our day to say goodbyes.
Backstage, I was cleaning out my drawers in the wardrobe case that comes with us to every show, and came across some masks of Peter’s face (!) that I’d brought along way back in April, hoping to find a good chance to surprise Peter with them.
I’d forgotten all about them, but now the plan is to wear them when we all come to stage front to bow, near the end of tonight’s show.
But… Manu had an idea: to wear them on our head instead of face…
and when we bow, it’ll look like this:
When we finally stopped laughing at the way that looks, Josh had a different idea of how to wear the mask…
Anyway, I won’t be able to shoot the scene, but we’ll have some fun with that bow tonight.
But now, time to go onstage
(Hey, that’s my case he’s sitting on - I/O meets King Crimson!)
In Sledgehammer, quite a few of the orange clad crew members came out to the area in front of the stage and danced along. I’d have liked to grab a photo of that, but didn’t get to the camera in time. Next chorus I did have it, and only Johnathan was there.
A few sights during “Darkness” that I’ve been wanting for the whole tour to get a shot of…
After “The Tower” (a bonus encore tonight) Peter introduced the crew, as he does each night, asking the audience to join us in giving them some applause for their hard work and expertise.
It would seem they know by now that they’re on camera and projected overhead. Nice.
So it comes to and end. Great show, great audiences, great run of shows here in the U.S, and in Canada, and in last Spring’s European shows. I’m lucky to have been a part of it.
No rushing off tonight, so I’m able to see a little of the huge job of dismantling things.
And… we’re sad, but… a little dancing in the dressing room seems to be our way to express that!
