This blog is the fifth chapter in my daily journals chronicling my first tour as a rock artist. I trekked across Europe in April and May with a cohort of seven musicians and six crew members. In my last four tour journal blogs (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4), I chronicled my escapades with screaming fans, struggles with laundry, and my fight against the flu. My adventures continue, now across North America.
Wednesday, May 21
12:15 pm
The Skies Above Los Angeles
I returned home from the European tour to a family I had not seen and work I had not completed. I didn’t exactly have time to relax—the night after I got home, I conducted a full symphony orchestra and choir performing my Rings of Power score as part of Deadline’s acclaimed Sound & Screen Television concert. (Even there, I couldn’t escape heavy metal. My suite included “The Last Ballad of Damrod,” which brought the house down when vocalist Sacha Dunable came to the stage to sing the bombastic vocal part originally performed by Meshuggah legend Jens Kidman!) But, my biggest task upon getting home was preparing for the approaching North American run of my Themes and Variations Tour.
While performing to European audiences last month, I decided to add three new songs to the set list for North America: “The Sun Yet Shines,” from The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, “A Son’s Path,” from God of War Ragnarök, and “Wander My Friends,” from Battlestar Galactica. I know these songs will further energize our crowds, but arranging them from scratch and adding them to our set list mid-tour proved easier said than done. I spent my first days home in a mad dash producing these new arrangements quickly—the entire band was waiting to learn them! Ensuring that everyone in my band had as much time as possible to review and practice these arrangements was vital because I knew we would not have a proper rehearsal to hash them out. The first time we will ever play these three songs will be at our venue in New York City.
Unlike my departure to Europe, I do not depart on the second leg of tour alone. My wife, Raya, and my daughter, Sonatine, are beside me and will be there to experience my first North American show, in New York. I am excited to show them both what I have been up to these past weeks!
Thursday, May 22
8:30 pm
New York City, New York
This morning, I woke up and grabbed some quick breakfast with Raya and Sonatine at a lovely New York diner called Sarabeth’s, a few blocks from tonight’s venue. From there, the ladies set out to enjoy Central Park while I grabbed a ride over to Silver Cord Studio, the Brooklyn-based musical home for my friend, Joe Duplantier, guitarist and singer for the iconic French metal band Gojira, one of my favorite modern bands.
I always enjoy the opportunity to chill with Joe and talk about our shared experiences in life and music. He was in the midst of tracking guitars with his engineer, Jamie Uertz, and I was thrilled to watch them tweak guitar amp heads and custom-built pedals to dial in Joe’s instantly recognizable guitar tones. I could have hung out there all day, but after a few hours, it was time to head back to Manhattan to prepare for my concert.
Walking into soundcheck at the Gramercy Theatre, and seeing my band and crew hard at work setting up, felt a bit like seeing my friends again on the first day of school after summer break. I was met on the street by Frankie Orange, our intrepid tour manager who had saved our show in Brussels (if not my life) by scouring the city for prescription antibiotics for me.
Entering the theater, I greeted front-of-house mixer Igor Stolarsky and lighting director Jack Spittler, both behind their respective consoles at the back of the room, adjusting levels. I always rest easy knowing that the audience’s sights and sounds are in their capable hands.
Approaching the stage, I approached monitor-mixer Timmy McGugin, still wearing his Battlestar Galactica hat procured from our European tour, hunkered behind his console at the corner of the stage. Beyond, I walked into a cramped corner of the backstage hallway at the top of a dark, concrete stairwell, where guitar tech Jai Kaminoff was tuning up my grey Ibanez guitar. I saw our drum tech, new for this run, setting up Gene’s kit, and introduced myself. Eduardo Baldo (goes by “Baldo”) is a short, powerfully built Brazilian man, who immediately impressed me with his collaborative attitude by leaping to help with my newly purchased taiko drum.
It has been wonderful to reunite with my band: bassist Pete Griffin, drummer Gene “The Atomic Clock” Hoglan, violinist Paul Cartwright, guitarist Omer Ben-zvi, vocalist and percussionist Morgan Sorne, and lead vocalist, my brother, Brendan McCreary.
As I dropped my bags in my backstage dressing room, I heard the familiar wailing strains of hurdy gurdy strings slowly bending, seemingly against their will, to a C. I traced the sound back up the concrete stairs to Jai’s corner, where I found him wrangling my instrument. In truth, I had pushed my new electric hurdy gurdy to nearly the breaking point over the course of my European tour, and its primary strings had dramatically snapped when I got back to Los Angeles. My tech team at Sparks & Shadows worked extensively to find replacement strings before I left for New York. I approached Jai just as he was valiantly adjusting the more than fifty individual tuning pegs required to keep the melodic strings in tune, made even more difficult by new strings that had not yet settled in. Jai had this look on his face I have come to recognize—his eyes sparkling with a combination of indignation counterbalanced by the thrill of facing a daunting challenge.
Today’s soundcheck was also meant to provide our only chance to properly rehearse the three new songs. I had sent the parts to my band and crew, and trusted that they learned them individually, but until a few hours ago, we have never played “The Sun Yet Shines,” “A Son’s Path” or “Wander My Friends” together. Due to a disappointingly shortened soundcheck, we only had enough time to run each song once, and we did not even have Brendan’s acoustic guitar set up. This means the first time we will ever play these songs in their complete form will be in front of a sophisticated New York audience. Not ideal. If I were working with any other band or crew, I would have pulled the new material out of the set. However, I think this group can pull it off. (I am about to find out if this gambit works!)
The bass frequencies from Morgan Sorne’s opening set have been thundering the walls in my dressing room as I write this. Time to get changed and hit the stage for the first show of my North American tour!
Friday, May 23
2:00 am
Between New York City and Boston
I knew we could pull it off! All three new songs absolutely rocked our raucous crowd.
I loved peering through the glaring spotlights to see Raya and Sonatine there looking back at me. The hurdy gurdy stayed in tune for the whole show thanks to Jai’s handiwork, and I felt quite confident on the instrument during the tricky solo at the start of “A Son’s Path.” I was thrilled to hear the crowd erupt into cheers when Paul offered even just the first few notes of Galadriel’s theme at the start of “The Sun Yet Shines.” “Wander My Friends” brought the house down, as Brendan and I sang the Scottish Gaelic lyrics from this fan favorite from Battlestar Galactica.
Inspired by my performance at Le Festival Echos & Merveilles in France earlier this month, I bought a taiko drum a few weeks ago and played it for the first time tonight, on the iconic Battlestar Galactica piece, “Prelude to War.” Exhilarated by the crowd’s energy, I smashed the drum with all my might. However, I realized about halfway through the song that this activity was actually a lot of cardio! My lungs began to burn, but it was too late to stop. I kept thinking of all the work I’ve done with my physical trainer over the last two years, and realized all the evenings spent boxing were going to pay off. I powered through the song without blacking out!
With my adrenaline still blasting, I made it to our show’s crowded afterparty, where I was able to celebrate with friends and family.
As the evening drew to a close, I brought Sonatine and Raya out front to the tour bus that will be my home for the next two weeks. There, we met our driver, Bruce Coleman, a delightful guy with a thick southern accent who unironically uses the phrase “Dadgum!”
Unlike our European double-decker bus, this one has only one floor. The front of the bus has a comfortable lounge area. Beyond a sink, cupboards, and a fridge, there is a small restroom, in which a shower has been converted into storage for all our bags. The front lounge can open up when the bus is parked, which turns the couch into a very slow little rollercoaster for anyone lucky enough to be seated on it when the driver extends it out. (Brendan and Frankie had a thrilling ride on the couch as it crawled at approximately one inch per hour!)
Further back still, we found a long hallway of bunks, three stacked on either side. At the far end of the bus was a small back lounge, which has been converted into my bedroom. (Look, I know what you’re thinking: Bear the diva rock star made everyone else sleep in tiny bunks while he converted one of only two lounges into his own personal bedroom. Well, I have you know that is only partially true! LOL. The reality is that this bus only sleeps twelve people and our crew totals thirteen. So, I simply had no other choice, right?)
Sonatine and Raya eventually called it a night, and returned to their hotel, having seen enough of my cozy little bus and rock star life. They will fly back to Los Angeles in the morning as the band and I head to Boston. I miss them already. Still, I am grateful they came out to see this.
Just before 1 am, I walked over to a pizza place a few doors down from the Gramercy. What is a trip to New York without sampling the city’s famous pizza? One by one, seemingly having the same thought, most of my band and crew wandered in. I picked up the tab for everybody, to thank them for their help in our hard-won victory tonight. We crowded into our bus and hit the road shortly after 1 am.
Friday, May 23
8:35 pm
Somerville, Massachusetts
Sleeping on this bus was a different experience compared to Europe. I felt more jostled around than before, probably because I’m now at the back instead of the front. Or maybe the roads are worse, I don’t know. Regardless, I did not struggle to fall asleep after the massive day I had. I woke up around 9 am to discover our bus was already parked behind our venue, the Somerville Theatre in Boston. I quickly brushed my teeth and took a ride over to a hotel a few blocks away to meet my family.
I flew my mom, Laura, and my aunt, Helen, out to Boston from the West Coast to see the show tonight. I was excited to see my family for breakfast, but I also realized I could use their hotel room bathroom to take a real shower! (The Gramercy Theatre had no shower backstage, so all thirteen of us guys crammed into that tiny bus last night without showering. Fun times.)
The VIP pre-show performance and signings are always a great way to interact with fans. So far, people have brought a variety of unique items to sign or show me, including original artwork, old photographs, and dozens of my albums and sheet music books. However, tonight a young man named Louie brought a beautiful hurdy gurdy! I was nervous to autograph it, since I’m sure I’ve never written my name on anything as expensive as this instrument, but he was enthusiastically insistent. Louie told me he was inspired by my music to purchase this instrument and had just begun to learn it. I asked him to play, and he shyly performed an elegantly ornamented Baroque version of Galadriel’s theme from The Rings of Power.
Louie made a generous offer to let me use his instrument in tonight’s show, but I had an even better idea. Frankie, Timmy and Jack had gathered at the front of the crowd to see what the commotion was about, and so I asked them to call Jai over. Jai walked up a minute later and stopped in his tracks when he saw the new hurdy gurdy. I asked him to restring and retune the entire instrument in the next half hour so I could use it in the show.
Frankie, Timmy, and Jack giggled quietly as Jai stared at me, with his usual sparkling expression reduced to an inquisitive glare, while he tried to figure out if I was serious. The eventual eruption of laughter told him we were kidding. (I know Jai well enough now to know he would have done it! In fact, I am quite touched by how seriously he has taken his newfound role as ‘hurdy gurdy technician.’ At this point he’s better at tuning the damn thing than I am.)
Saturday, May 24
3:55 am
Somerville, Massachusetts
Wow, Boston, that was fantastic! At the end of our opening song, “Incinerator,” Brendan ran to the edge of the stage and brought the entire seated crowd to their feet. I moved up and joined him, as together we teetered over the crowd screaming “INCINERATE!” at the top of our lungs. There was electricity in the air.
At last night’s show, I experimented with sharing more anecdotes about my work with the crowd, an idea I pushed further tonight. I reminisced about playing with He-Man action figures as a kid three decades before Kevin Smith called me to score Masters of the Universe: Revelation. I recalled hearing melodies in my head the first time I read Tom Bombadil’s lyrics in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, and I raved about my experience with Hozier writing “Blood Upon the Snow.” I felt more connected to the audience personally, and it seemed like this additional context brought more energy out from the crowd during these songs. I learn something new about my show each night, and this concept is definitely something I will continue to explore.
As I was putting on my accordion tonight, before “Midnight Sun,” I told the crowd a quick story about how I used to practice the instrument in the basement of my college dorm, playing old movie themes including “The Godfather Theme.” To my surprise, Brendan suddenly dared me to play it then and there, and I happily offered a couple bars of Nino Rota’s iconic love theme from the film, to laughter and applause. That was unexpected!
“Black Sails” killed tonight. Suddenly, the Somerville Theatre was transformed into the deck of a sailing ship, filled with pirates singing at the top of their lungs.
The most emotional moment of tonight’s show for me was undeniably “Wander My Friends,” because my mom was in the audience. My mom always talks about how vividly she recalls her first experience hearing this song, when I had just completed the first draft of it in November of 2004. (More than two decades ago, my god!) “Wander My Friends” was dedicated to a family friend who passed away that fall, so it has always resonated very deeply for my family. I fought back tears when I saw her in the crowd, dabbing her eyes, as Brendan and I sang the heartfelt lyrics.
Our little backstage area was packed with friends and family after the show. I was excited that my mom and aunt were there, and was also pleasantly surprised to meet Pete Griffin’s parents! It makes sense that all of us in the band know more people in the North American cities compared to Europe, but I have to admit I hadn’t anticipated that we’d have more guests backstage after each show. This has added a little burst of energy to the tour that I really appreciate.
It is now after 4 am and the bus just pulled out of the alley behind the Somerville Theatre. My adrenaline is finally starting to wear down. Just as I worried I would not be able to fall asleep, sure enough, Gene Hoglan peeked in to offer me a melatonin. My guardian angel. (My guardian Dark Angel, given the name of one of his most famous bands!) Four more North American shows await!
Continued in Part 6.
-Bear
