Last night in Pittsburgh

Eric Slick with the Adrian Belew Power Trio

So our gig last night in Pittsburgh was awesome! The crowd was great; the venue (Club Cafe) was perfect, and I was really happy with our overall performance. The previous evening in Buffalo was a little rough because we had electricity problems (Gah! Did I have to go and say in my post yesterday before the gig that I was happy this leg of the tour had no "adventures"? Next time I will knock on wood before saying that.) Once again I had no monitor for part of the evening and couldn't hear myself and a lot of Adrian's effects kept going on and off but other than that, the Icon in Buffalo had a huge stage, it was full of appreciative fans, and we had a blast despite the technical difficulties.

We're about to leave for Philadelphia and yay! I get to see my girlfriend Carolyn who has been on tour herself with the Rock School All-Stars. We haven't seen each other in over two weeks! Tonight she wraps up the Rock School tour at the World Cafe Live where, interestingly enough, I'll be playing with Adrian the next evening. I can't wait to see this grand finale of the Rock School summer tour because it's also graduation night for a lot of the All-Stars I've known for years and the show (well, both of them, there's an early and late set) should be amazing since they're coming off a long tour which included gigs at the House of Blues on both the east and west coast and Lollapalooza.

But yeah, it's a day off for me once we drive back to Philadelphia from Pittsburgh. I get to see my family, my girlfriend, and sleep in my own bed for the next two nights before we leave for Atlanta on Tuesday to take part in the Acoustic Planet tour with Bela Fleck and Umphrey's McGee on Wednesday. Very cool news on that, too. CNN is coming with a film crew to interview us backstage pre-show! And there is a possibility of a documentary in the works.

So we're down to the last five shows on the east coast/southern portion of this tour and while I'm really sad about it, I have some incredible things to look forward to, the least of which is resuming the tour with the Adrian Belew Power Trio in early November when we head out west -- everywhere from Arizona to San Francisco to a swing through Texas and maybe New Mexico. I'm psyched.

But in my (ha) downtime in late August, September, and October, I have mini-tours and some way interesting gigs lined up and I will be talking more about them once I'm finished the Belew tour.

For now, I'm just prepping for the long drive home, anxious to see my girlfriend, and really psyched about our show at the World Cafe Live Monday night.

Oh. And Happy Birthday to bassist Matt Rothstein, Julie's significant other. We're all having dinner in his honor tonight prior to the All-Stars WCL show tonight so that should be a lot of fun, too.

Ahh...home sweet home. I've traveled all over the world but I really love Philadelphia best.