Day 177 - September 4th 2009
I was up at 7 like usual and my Dad was in a half hurry to get where we needed to go. Today we were going to Lincoln Financial Field to meet Eagles Quarterback Donovan McNabb.
For those of you who read this that aren’t from the area, Philadelphia is a sports town, a Football town and the Eagles are kings. You may run into an occasional person that is butt crazy in love with the Phillies, but while attendance at Citizens Bank Park has skyrocketed because the Phillies are god now, the football games are generally sold out no matter how good (or bad) the team is. So to meet the Quarterback is a pretty big deal. He was doing a talk with kids about Diabetes, a disease his father has as well as my father and brother. So my dad took my nieces and my sister and I tug along as chaperones.
We got to the field in the morning and there were a few other kids there. Someone came to get us and took us down to the locker room and there it was, it was pretty huge with all the jerseys hung up nice and neat with the names on the lockers for each player including Brian Westbrook, Asante Samuel and Michael Vick. We stood around for a while, I found some free (in the form of Gatorade) and after a while there he was….5 as they call him around these parts. He was smaller than I imagined which makes some of his feats of strength on the field even more impressive. He talked to the kids for a while about diabetes and football, he signed some autographs and then he peaced out. I liked how he seemed the same in person as he does on TV and the press conferences. He’s cool as a fan and doesn’t seem to let the craziness get to him.
After he left they took us on a tour of the stadium, we walked past Temple’s locker room and I yelled at it cause some of my tuition money probably went towards funding that poor excuse of a football program. Then we got to walk on the field which was pretty cool. The stadium itself is pretty impressive, I haven’t been to an Eagles game since they played at the Vet (which is a whole other thing) but hopefully I’ll make it out this season before it gets too cold.
We dropped the kids off and I went home to lay down. I turned my attention towards the next task at hand. We were opening for Bojibian tonight upstairs at World Café Live and I wanted to make sure we were ready and good.
I got there around 6 to drop off equipment. Then I ran over to Lickety to give them the set times for the bands tonight and ran back over to World Café Live to settle in. 3 fifths played as the crew arrived. I was using the horns tonight which I figured would be fun.
There’s a certain fun to being the opening act. My only focus was on myself, I didn’t have the burden of promoting an entire show, MCing making sure the flow was good. All I had to do was worry about playing and putting asses in seats. It’s rare in Philly (especially at World Café Live) that I have a no pressure gig so I was gonna enjoy every minute of it.
Set List
Little Red Corvette/Highway to hell (Acoustic)
Superhero
(Oh) I wish I Loved You
The Way You Make Me Feel
How Can This Be Love
Feels So Good
(I Think We Should) Breakup
Leavin
It was like Quicksand. There was barely a monitor mix on stage, he kept fiddling with my amp, I couldn’t hear anything, we had a glitch with the horns, and it threw everything else off. All of a sudden you’re in a hole that you can’t dig yourself out of. I couldn’t tell you if it sounded bad or not because I couldn’t hear anything on stage. I haven’t had problems with sound there since I first started playing there. I didn’t feel very good leaving the stage and it showed.
Bojibian hit the stage and rocked it like it was 1999. Their fans are super loyal and really danced and sung all the tunes. They got their start at Philly Rising and in a little more than a year they have a headlining show upstairs at World Café Live, they are tearing up the Mid Atlantic region and people love them. You can’t beat that.
We hung out a little on South Street I went past Lickety Split to see how the night went (went pretty well) and I went home shortly after closing time.
Big day tomorrow so I hit the sack
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