Tony Levin Road Diary

Another outdoor show for us, here at Munich’s Koenigsplatz. (Oops, above it says it’s “London Rehearsals”, which it’s not… just my bad linking!)

Wow, I never thought about what “let’s move the stage a little forward” entails with this setup.

better choreography than we have in the show!

Amid the cluster of cases, this one, left from last night’s Def Leppard / Motley Crue show here. I’m told it’s the ‘mains’ connections, and they’ll be badly missing it at their next show.

Maybe it’s a good time to introduce you to my instruments.

In the front is the Chapman Stick. It turns out I’m only playing it on one song in the set, but had brought it on tour in case we did some of the many songs from the past that call for it.

Here’s what I’ve come to refer to (in my setlist) as Bald Bass, because, well… it’s had a close shave!

Though it looks like a regular Ernie Ball StingRay, it’s the modern Special, that’s much lighter weight. Very convenient for shows and even more so for long rehearsals. For the past year or so, this has been my go-to bass on recordings.

But, look out… there’s the DarkRay version of StingRay.

It’s got two DarkGlass preamps in it, that can be kicked in with the toggle switch, for different degrees of raunch.

And, got to have a fretless on hand… this is my Sledge 4 string fretless, the two pickup “Sabre” model that I used on the recording of Sledgehammer many years back. This one’s a complex color that looks different in different lighting. But on the 2016 tour, when Peter teamed up with Sting, we were asked to try to play Red instruments, to contrast with Sting’s band’s being Blue. Nobody really did that, but somewhere in the process, Michele, my brilliant bass tech, added stick-on color that’s not permanent. Of course we’ve left it that way.

And, lastly, my trusty NS Electric Upright. Happy to be playing this on a lot of the show, usually on a stand, but with a strap on the early songs ‘around the campfire’

Whew. Back to the show, we’re backstage gearing up to go on

It’s a fun time, this heading to the stage, often a bit of a wait there to get started. We’re excited to see the audience which has by now filled the venue. Some of the crew are busy, others are resting… their work day started long ago, while ours is just starting. (And, of course, ours will end in a few hours, while they’ll be de-constructing the stage late into the night.)