Aug. 22, Sao Paulo

I arrived today, with our sound engineer Robert Frazza, after flying overnight from Newark. The band is arriving in stages, Markus and Leonardo (our agent) having arrived a couple of days ago, and Pat will get in tomorrow just in time for our one day of rehearsing.

This tour we’re happy to have special guest, violinist David Cross joining us. We’d done a tour of Japan with him a couple of years back, and released the Midori CD from those live shows. The next few weeks of touring will relive that music and more, and will take us to quite a few areas, some new for me.

Arrived in the morning, and having most of the day free is nice. Organizing my pedals, practicing the theme of a new improv basis that Markus came up with. His complex parts are always a gradual learning curve for me, but well worth it once I get them under my fingers. I won’t expect to have it totally right by our first show, but it is… an improv! So there’s plenty of latitude.

Oh, and thanks to our promoter, Chris Oliveira for the above picture.

And whoops, sorry I’ve misspelled Sao Paulo on the page top! Can’t change the page title without doing the whole diary again.

Aug. 23, Sao Paulo

Our one day of rehearsal was at a nice spacious recording studio about 1/2 hr drive from our hotel. A lot of material to cover, because we’re asking David to join in on our Stick Men material, not just the Crimson and improv pieces.

Pretty beat at night, we just ate in the hotel and called it a day.

Aug 24, Sao Paulo.

Easy morning, then soundcheck at Club Carioca. We’re still not up to speed on some of the pieces David’s joining in on, so we spent quite a bit of time focussing on some of them.

Sound checks are a funny thing. At the start of a tour there just isn’t time in the soundcheck to properly get your instrument and pedal levels right, to get everyone’s monitor mix right, and to polish up the new material - so you’re always running over the allotted time.

Then, within a week or two, all that will be second nature, dialed in on your monitor system, songs learned… and you’ll pretty much just play a minute or two of a piece and then go find the food!

Nice backdrop they’ve made up for us here.

David will play some keyboard in the show, as will Markus.

Another difference from the Crimson shows… here the audience is allowed to take photos, and so I can too!

As with all the pictures on the web diary, if you are in the crowd and want a larger version of the picture, just click on it.

Wonderful night, with a great crowd. The whole extent of my Portuguese tonight was “Oi gente”… but the audience was very welcoming to us and our music.

A short list of who’s on the tour, (something I often forgot to explain!)
David Cross: violin and keyboard
Markus Reuter: U8 Touch Guitar and keyboard
Pat Mastelotto: electronic and acoustic drums
Tony Levin: Chapman Stick
Robert Frazza: front of house sound
Leonardo Pavkovic: merch sales and booking agent.

More soon, as we head to Rio tomorrow.