By: Brent
From: The Banks of the Left Coast
First things first: Greatest of leftcoast vibes out to Neil and Rich. You guys are class, and I am sure the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.
Second thing: Scotty, thanks a ton for the hookup for the Tonight Show passes last night. What a blast. And Dino, thanks for sharing the experience bro – normal people just don’t understand music. You guys are good people. Now get ready for VEGAS!!!!!
Now to the Leno rundown: Got to the studio about 2pm. Got let in about 3:30 ugh! Seats are dead center near the top (perfect for me, Scotty would complain if he was sitting on Derek’s amp). If you ever get a show with Scotty, half the fun is watching the kid. He is constantly jumping around and trying to figure out where he wants to be. Right before they opened the curtain for the ABB he was scoping out where he could dance and not get tackled by an NBC paige or get knocked down by a swing arm camera. There is no one in this world that loves this band more than Scotty. And to see the joy that this music brings to the kid is a sight.
The studio held about 300. 4 people were there to see the ABB *grin*. I was really interested in how they record this show. It is really live to recording (commercials and all). I am not a huge Leno fan either, but he runs that show pretty tight. And to everyone that is complaining about Ellen: remember outside of our world there are appearantly bigger stars than the ABB *gasp*. 296 of the 300 there yesterday were more excited to see her than the ABB. I don’t understand why, but I am a Peachhead, so what do I know. It was nice to see people come up to us after the show and ask us about the band. (the lady next to me leaned over and asked if Derek was Elijah). “Ummmmm, NO!”
The first take was solid however there were a few missed cues. It has to be hard for a band to raise a curtain and hit the lights and nail one song on live tv with no warmup. Hence, thank god for the second take. The second shot was solid as hell.
It was funny, after the first take, they did these promos with Jay, Ellen, Jamie and band standing around and Jay saying who was going to be on the show tonight (Derek had this funny grin on his face, like what the heck am I doing here, I just wanna play).
By the way, here’s an aside: Saw Derek standing stage left with Butch earlier in the show with his guitar on. I have seen Derek many many many times off stage, and I realized at this point, I have only seen him once without a guitar strapped around his neck. How does the kid go to the bathroom (he could get electrocuted)? How does he drive? Does he sleep on his back with that thing? Changing his clothes must be a problem. See how my twisted mind works.
Anyways, back to the promos. After the promos were shot, the stage director comes out to the band who are all behind Jay and says something to the effect that there was a dropout in the recording and could they do another take? At which point, Gregg says, “We Would LOVE to do it again.” Dino then yelled out, “Play all night!!!” As Scotty and I whooped and hollered causing security to move slightly closer to our section. As stated, they nailed the second take and took advantage of an op that live tv usually doesn’t give. They then edited in all the handshaking and stuff that actually happened after the first take.
Congrats if you read this long and sorry for being so long winded. Last thing I found totally interesting: Kevin Eubanks watched the monitor from his stool the whole first take, cause his band has to play the outro, well, when Derek started in with that sweet tone, his eyebrows raised and he started to look around to the orchestra to make sure his guys and girl were seeing what he was seeing. Then on the second take (the outro was already in the can) he immediately went and sat Indian style (is that politically correct?) right next to their monitors in front of Oteil. Right after they finished he popped up and started giving hugs all around to every member of the band. I just found it awesome to see another musician so appreciative of what he is seeing for what I assumed was the first time.
All in all, it was a great time. Scotty is the man with the juice for hooking up. Thanks again brutha.
Take your vitamins and put your helmet on, leftcoasters, the show is about to begin.
