arrived alive

We have arrived in Amsterdam and soothed our offended travel-worn bodies with a solid twenty-four hours’ acclimation, much of which is spent in fitful sleep.  Thunderstorms occasionally plow above the city bringing brief but torrential rain.

I can tell that, sadly, this isn’t a language I’ll be learning.

Joe herding his families’ luggage

“I declare I am glad to be alive!”

outside of customs we acquire guides

following our guide through Schiphol Airport, brain sort of functioning

signs and portents are good

our technique for luggage loading does not pass muster with our driver

so many museums…so little attention span

Later in the day I take a short walkabout near the hotel in the old section of Amsterdam. Rain and wind snatch at my umbrella but the air is welcome and bracing on my exhausted face.  Dodging bicycles, trams and strollers I wander slowly.  If I can just stay up a few more hours I’ll be able to sleep through the night and, tomorrow morning, be on local time.  At least that’s how my Dad explained the workings of international jet travel and how to avoid jetlag.

how I feel

a sentiment I can relate to

public art meets Dutch whimsicality

I finally allow myself to sleep after 6pm, local time, having been awake a mere 28 hours.  Not a personal record but all I can manage this time around.  When I awake it’s still raining.  Today is our rehearsal.

hot fun in the summertime…

…except that it’s been rainy and cool in Northern Europe for the past month, with no break in sight.

some of the necessaries of travel

I’ll be swapping one marine layer for another.  A tour booklet, my passport and other necessaries languish on the kitchen counter, in morning light.  I’m filled with a fierce glee.  Not the glee of a barbarian, wading through corpses, nor that of a three year old clutching a new balloon and running towards a playground.  It’s travel fever and, more importantly, a movement towards (not a running away from).

When Last We Left Our Heroes…G3 NZ/AU (from left: Keneally, Valentine, Campitelli, Weiner, Whitman, Bynoe, Jones, Weingart, Lukather, Vai, Satriani)

Flying from SFO to AMS, in comfort.  The summer European leg of the fabulous G3 guitar extravaganza tour begins.  When last we left our heroes (and they are legion) it was in the aftermath of a successful, enjoyable and exciting G3 tour covering two cities in New Zealand and eight in Australia.  Joe (Satriani), Steve Vai and Steve Lukather were the stars.  This European leg will exchange the voluable, intense and hilarious Steve Lukather for Steve Morse, a man I met only very briefly, a long time ago.  I was working sales at a local music store in 1988 and Mr. Morse gave a guitar clinic which I attended.  As a fan of the Dixie Dregs I inquired of him during the Q&A session what he looked for in a bass player.  His response was simple and to the point, and stuck with me.  “Fifty percent chops and fifty percent attitude,” he said.

Next stop: Amsterdam!

Byron Bay Blues Festival

Call is an early 9:30am at the hotel in Brisbane for the two hour ride out East, past the Gold Coast and down to Byron Bay for the big Byron Bay Blues Festival, an annual blowout of 200 bands, five stages and five days of music.  Because there are so many acts all sets are shortened and though the G3 jam will be standard length our individual sets are whittled down to 25 minutes each.  Joe’s set is five songs, Vai and Luke’s are four apiece.  It’s a hot day near (but not near enough) the ocean.

Luke: all teeth and personality

Back on the bus and, as has been the norm on this tour, Luke has gotten us laughing so hard our stomachs hurt.

Joe (R) records Luke's (L) teeth

The teeth were Joe’s idea and he brought along several sets which he handed out.

Jeff likes the back of the bus

The drive wears on and we quiet down into the rhythm of the ride.

Mr. Vai catches up

I see yellow “koala crossing” signs and large bridges built over the freeway that aren’t paved but instead covered with trees and bushes. I imagine these forested pathways are for the koalas, among other creatures, who would stand no chance of survival meandering across three lanes of heavy holiday traffic.  It’s Easter Sunday and not even the observant would be able to stop in time.

this may not be where we're supposed to be

Our driver tries several gambits for entry into the festival, turning around and retracing his steps more than once.  We begin to recognize landmarks and I notice operator frustration in the way the bus is being muscled around corners.  With relief we arrive at the site, park and everyone gets out.  We are told immediately to get back in the bus.  We’re not there yet.

this must be where we're supposed to be

A sign is spied and the hint is taken.

Mick Brigden hands out the laminates

Once we are debouched everyone receives his or her laminate.  Without the holy laminate a backstage orphan would quickly be seized, prosecuted and mulched, the better to return any valuable nutrients not decimated by years of abuse to the soil.  Okay, maybe not but still….you’ve got to hold on to your laminate.  Losing it just isn’t done.  It’s Bad Form, as we’ve mentioned before.  Protocol will be observed.

personalized, no less!

My laminate is A2 level so let’s see what I can get away with at this event.

The Hierarchy of Laminates

Well that’s too bad.  I’m not an Authorized Decision Maker, I can’t tell Security where to go, nor can I escort guests with impunity.  So much for my designs of bum-rushing the show.  But I am distracted in the backstage area….look at all these names…and this is only one of the five stages on only one of the five days of the full festival run.

"Ooooh Sharon, what do you do to these men..."

He's why they can call it a "Blues" festival

saw him at Hardly Strictly in SF: wonderful

it keeps getting better and better

and they make it LOOK good, too

almost cut my hair

no way man! I'm freaking out!

I decide to take a quick walk out to the festival area and am quickly surrounded by wandering multitudes dressed in celebratory attire, much of which is pointed social commentary of a (thankfully) higher sort.  Whales, biodeisel, gender politics, youth and teen culture and green energy organizations are everywhere displaying information, education and outreach.  Many local independent makers offer handmade clothing, jewelry, hats, and shoes as well as various sculpture, painting and other monetized craft pastimes.  A hundred food stalls offer everything imaginable.  I buy a hat from the Sea Shepard people (“Stand By To Ram!”) because they insanely risk their lives by intervening with whalers on the open ocean in an effort to protect diminishing cetacean populations.

Surrounded by all this talent, and since we’re only hard rock act, we absolutely bring it for our final date in Australia.  Though our sets are short the energy is very high, incandescent even.  The crowd responds enthusiastically, deafeningly, though how they can compete with our front of stage volume remains a mystery.

Luke (R), Joe and Vai (L) get some banter in between songs

Why we fight.

without you we ain't nuthin'

The short shuttle from stage back to hospitality finds current Chickenfoot drummer Kenny Aronoff maniacally giving us the Beatlemania Treatment.

Kenny Aranoff does rudiments on the side of the van

Once inside we relax, happy, satisfied but sad too, bittersweet.  This tour is over.

Luke (R) counsels Joe on his New Look

The full moon follows us through gathering dusk for the two hour ride back to Brisbane.  Runner call to the airport is way too early in the morning.  It’s time for the long trip back to the U.S.

A full moon follows us all the way home

Here ends an online diary of G3 on tour in Australia and New Zealand, March and April of 2012.  I fully intend to continue this diary for the European G3 tour in July and August of 2012 as well as a possible South American G3 tour for October 2012.  One never knows what’s going to happen.

Thanks very much for reading.

hell yeah Brisbane!

A city we were vaguely warned about for its conservatism turns out to be beautiful, vibrant and welcoming.  The meandering Brisbane River provides glorious waterfront views and warm winds waft white clouds under starkly azure skies.  Our show is at the Brisbane Convention Center, downtown, near the hotel, every bit as monolithic as the name suggests.  Everything inside the building is far away from everything else, requiring directions, patience, time and strong legs.

in case you were looking

Our shuttle van delivers us to the backstage door in a hangar large enough for aircraft.  Catering is three flights (or was it four?) downstairs from dressing rooms.  The squash soup is as good as any I’ve tasted.

the cereal tour - getting better all the time

Mike Keneally plays my blue bass

The show is very well attended but we’d need to be Dethklok to make use of the entire space, much of which is blanketed over, especially the upper tiers.  Nonetheless a very vocal and appreciative crowd greets every song and each guitar player receives a very warm welcome.  This is the last official G3 show of the tour (tomorrow’s final performance will see us with an extremely shortened version) and everybody pulls out all the stops.  The sets go a shade long – who can blame us?  The crowd goes wild for the G3 jam.  The playing is raucous and irreverent, the sound on stage is good, if a little boomy, but everyone is elevated.  Upstairs again afterwards everybody laughs about clams, tone (or lack of it) and inspiration.

Joe (R) remembers the lines he forgot to sing

O no you didn't! (L to R: Dave, Philip, Renee, Steve)

Luke (L), Vai and Joe (R) after show

(L to R) Luke, Vai, Mick B., Joe, Mike K.

We all shout at each other while recovering from stage volume.  Turning into fanboys and fangirls, we sign tour posters for each other as if we’re signing our high school yearbooks, mementos as the Summer begins.  For the new G3 participants, myself included, it’s been a good-hearted whirlwind of super fun music played with joyful and often hilarious players.  The G3 veterans say it’s the best, most enjoyable, of the series yet.

Tomorrow is the Byron Bay Blues Festival, two hours north of Brisbane.  It’s an enormous affair with five stages, almost 200 acts from all over the world, and very short sets for us – a sort of musical surgical strike.

Adelaide – where the hell for art thou?

We travel to Adelaide and logistics decree a day off.  Naturally it’s spent having a celebratory crew and band dinner, at Gaucho’s, an Argentinian place (natch) on Gouger St., near the hotel.  Of course we are many, loud and, in some cases, tight.

Luke (standing) delivers a coherent and heartfelt appreciation

With at least twenty-one people in our boisterous party it’s not a stretch to reason why the rest of the room emptied out so quickly.  Most of us sampled many remarkable local Australian wines, consumed mass quantities of meats and those of us still standing (or at least seated upright) closed the place.  Stuart, our front-of-house engineer and a table-mate, comments the songs “may be several beats slower tomorrow night.”

Jeff (R) kindly holds the door while singing a song only he can hear

The next day finds us at a venue that typically hosts large scale musicals.  At each dressing room are printed warnings heeding performers to mind their belongings.  Downstairs catering staff refuses second helpings as if they have to make it last for a giant cast. In the hallways there are many large cast and crew photographs from all your favorites (Brigadoon! Cats! A Chorus Line!) as well as even bigger color portraits of such luminaries as Peter Ustinov (below the belt bulge!) and Dame Edna Ferber (wow those glasses!).

(from L to R) Rubina, Joe, Luke, Steve, Renee look upon photos of animals

In the dressing room Joe shows photos taken from today’s jaunt to a farm.  Images of several animals whose names I can’t pronounce (let alone remember) as well as the usual suspects: kangaroos, koalas, Tazmanian Devils.  The marsupial cuteness causes much ooo-ing and ahh-ing.

it's good to have a style

There’s a recurrent theme in this online tour diary.  The Adelaide Festival Center does not disappoint.

some brains were left

The show goes well and as Stuart predicted.  Adelaide is the first English city in Australia not built as a prison camp.  Tomorrow: Queensland and Brisbane.

Melbourne – far away from all that

Two shows in Melbourne, Southern Australia, back to back, a luxury in some ways.  The crew don’t have to tear it down and build it back up and we don’t have to travel again.  We can wake up slowly and wander into consciousness.

thanks! glad to be here!

Happy greetings at the Palais theatre in Melbourne.  Built in 1927, it’s a funky monument by the sea.  God knows what stories it can tell.

scaffolding frames it nicely

Like everything else by the ocean the Palais is constantly falling apart.  And like any architectural monument to show business from another era it’s worth preserving.

you know where this is going...

A new and surprising notice provided by catering.  While no one’s copping to anything, I suspect this is spillover into the band world of an old gastronomical prejudice for life on the crew bus.

fan art is the best art

Backstage there are sacred relics of a sort.

I can smell the sea

From the window of our dressing room behind bars, the ocean breeze brings the scent of freedom.

so close and yet...

As a teenager I was in love with Yes; the melodies, songs, singing, harmonies, production, visual aesthetic and, of course, the bass playing.  The bass player was my all-time hands-down favorite bassist.  I lived those classic albums and, oddly, never learned the bass parts.  It was enough to listen to the songs, whole.  In 1976 I ordered a brand new (my first) Rickenbacker 4001, in Autumn-Glo, a particularly hideous brown burst finish.  When the instrument arrived at the music store I rushed over and laid the case on the floor and opened it up wide.  It smelled so noxious it almost knocked me out.  Was it the finish?  The case?  Hide glue?  Who the hell knows…I thought the invisible repulsive chemical cloud billowing up into my nineteen year old nostrils the most sublime scent imaginable.  To this day I can conjure the smell and the feeling.  This was *it*.   Of course I played the hell out of that bass, with a pick, and loud too, in my high school rock band “God Only Knows” (named by our drummer’s Mom – a nurse – a regional hospital slang for a disease of which there is no known cause or cure).  That same year I graduated from high school, barely, and soon after that traded in my prog rock aspirations along with my Rickenbacker for a 1977 Fender Jazz bass, a Philadelphia musician’s union card and a six piece uniformed disco/show band working six sets a night six nights a week at the Jersey shore.

What would I say to Chris Squire if I met him today?  Thanks?  Certainly, yes.  What else can be said?  Thanks, Chris, wherever you are.

i want to believe

Upstairs at the Palais a skylight casts an odd glow through a translucent glass door.

engine of creation

Downstairs at the Palais a silent early Twentieth Century internal combustion engine dominates a small room out back.

don't go in the funhouse

Across the street from the Palais an amusement park presents no attraction whatsoever.

on the beach

The beach in front of the Palais reminds me of the Jersey shore on a flat day.  A warm on shore breeze fills my head.

our children consider us fools

Out front of the Palais theatre a newlywed couple chooses to document their union in an ostentatious and only slightly American way.

i sense a theme here

Catering: what are they trying to tell us?

two of the unsung heroes of the tour, part 9 (Chris (L) & Galen)

There’s no appropriate words to accurately paint the picture of crew life.  I wouldn’t last two days – the hours, the responsibilities – I’d be booted off the island pretty quick.  Crew work doesn’t ever appear to cease.  The story goes that if a poorly performing employee were to be let go from a certain rock tour they would only find out when management politely inquired of them whether they preferred a seat on the aisle or by a window?

you're either on the bus or...

God forbid you should miss the van or bus.  The admonishment “bad form” wouldn’t even begin to cover it.  It simply isn’t done.  “Don’t be a stain” is a caution I’ve heard referring to one who shows up late to the “runner to venue” call.  It refers, apparently, to what you’re left with – the oil spots on the driveway in the location where the now departed vehicle stood.

sometimes even duct tape doesn't help

Near our hotel evidence of the fallibility and impermanence of all things – a positively Buddhist moment – is displayed by the failure of even this iconic material.

stylistic integrity

On a walkabout near the hotel I allow myself a present – new shoes.  They’re not that different from the old ones, either.  Now, after two relaxed and enjoyable shows in Melbourne we all catch the morning bus on time and, like a flock of migrating birds (“an ‘itch’ of talent”?) morning finds us waiting for a plane to Adelaide.  Mr. Lukather digs into a page turning mystery while Mr. Vai absorbs a few extra kharma points.

there's something you don't see every day

 

show in Sydney

On the large stage of the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney, Australia, Steve Vai gives as good as he gets to a capacity crowd filling the hall.

shooting the moon

At a select point in the Vai set, Mike Keneally, armed with an axe of his own to grind, strides onto the stage in a purposeful manner.

here come the warm jets

Meanwhile, backstage, Mick Brigden delivers to Joe copies of the Satchurated concert DVD and CD.  A carefully recorded, filmed (hi-def! 3D!) and mixed live show from Montreal, Canada, in December 2010, the film is already in limited release in several hundred 3D theaters worldwide.  This release is a watershed moment for this author.  Joe knows a moment when he sees one.  Look Ma!  Top of the world!!!

one of these things is not like the other

Steve Vai and band have left a smoking crater in front of the stage and now it’s our turn to mop up.  This we do with enjoyment.  Following quickly on our raucous and enthusiastic set, the G3 guitarists grab notes and squeeze.

one note open string bass line makes this photo possible

After the set we are all energized.  This was an especially good one, it had the magic. The guitar players animatedly and happily discuss their notes (they do this!) and Joe demonstrates a peak moment as Vai and Luke laugh in recognition.

air guitar (L to R: Luke, Joe & Vai)

Outside, out back of the venue a wild rabid horde of fans presses dangerously up against steel retaining bars eager to catch a glimpse, a word, a signature, a guitar pick….ahh…actually, no.  It was an appreciative and polite bunch, bless them, and they asked nicely.

Steve Lukather signs autographs

The next day is a travel day, to Melbourne and beyond.  I think 8am is early but the crew has already left the hotel.

where is your cruise ship now Herr Frankenstein?

There isn’t enough coffee in the world.

Sydney – day of show

My day begins at noon.  Last night’s two hour drive from Newcastle back to Sydney under heat lightning was spent looking between storm clouds for the constellation of the Southern Cross.  I don’t get the view, however, and back in my room I fall asleep the moment my head hits the pillow.  When I wake up and pull open the heavy blackout curtain I’m startled by an enormous cruise ship.

it was moving very slowly

At our call in the lobby we gather, as usual, with smiling greetings and pile into the van.  Dave Weiner is fashionable in his retro Boston tshirt.

Jeff (L) and Dave

I believe it’s possible (in part) to tell what’s going on in a musician’s head by the t-shirt they’re wearing.  Where t-shirts are worn, mostly in the rock world, players might wear something cool and topical, how they might be feeling or want to feel.  A t-shirt of the album cover from the first Boston record says: it’s cool to like old stuff, it was a big hit and a lot of people probably fell in love or got laid to it, and now it’s iconic audio.  Enough time has passed.

Mr. & Mrs. Jones

Married for twelve years, high-school sweethearts Renee (bass) and her husband Steve (keyboards) play in Steve Lukather’s band.  Luke acknowledges he’s lucky to have them.  They’re relaxed with each other and their world reflects that comfort.

sound check

Having been burned a couple times by capricious audio gremlins, Steve Lukather spends a little extra time at sound check working through some kinks in the signal path.

like anyone is going to do this at a G3 show

An enormous sign hangs near the side of the stage.  I wonder if a spotlight shines on this sign throughout the performance.  Just a friendly reminder in case anyone is being transported with emotion and considering violent physical release.

Joe & Steve meet with fans

Adjacent to the venue is an enormous empty building suitable for livestock exposition.  Naturally Joe and Steve host their Q & A in one cozy corner of the hangar.  It’s abnormally still for such a cavernous space.  Joe, by speaking quietly, intuitively lessens the enormity of the silence.  This causes the attendees to listen more closely.  It’s like being inside the pyramids.

Graham (L) & Michael bring on the haute cuisine

Back at catering it’s a grand spread, a smorgasbord, with Michael and Graham taking orders to cook our dinner individually, right on the spot.  It’s a great gift to be able to eat this well.

wall of signatures preserved

In the dining room an old wall of signatures is mounted on casters and persevered behind plexiglass.  I notice the Billy Joel especially, if only because his name keeps coming up during this tour.  And not only because a flight attendant accused Luke of looking like him (which he really, really doesn’t).  Mike Keneally is known to spontaneously erupt into song, a behavior I admire and emulate, and one song in particular strikes his fancy: that moment in “Honesty” when Mr. Joel goes for the climactic “hardly ever heeeaaarrrd!” and of course we all mangle it together.  Helpless laughter is a not untypical result.  Try harmonizing with it, too.  None of us can believe Luke never worked with Mr. Joel.  How did that singer songwriter guy slip through the cracks?

wish my was stomach larger

I consider dessert but my cup runneth over.  Is it an embarrassment of riches?

I chose the lamb but beets stole the show

Sated and even stuffed, I make my way down to our enormous dressing room.  One could choreograph a short ballet in this place.  We get socks, too, and they are the perfect antithesis of the elongated schoolboy rugby up-your-thigh technical socks of Canberra.  These socks are more like little slippers.  I test my theory of sock juxtaposition.

from the sublime to the ridiculous

It’s a failure, as I knew it would be.

unique cereal names

Keeping with the new meme of odd cereal, I offer: “Krunchy Pur.”  But I am distracted.  What’s that sound?  It’s the Steve Lukather band and tonight they are absolutely smoking.  We notice from our giant dressing room.  This band is on fire tonight.  There’s that little extra this evening – the magic.

(L to R) Steve Lukather, Renee Jones, Steve Wiengart, Eric Valentine

After the show I rush over to their equally cavernous dressing room.  I want to see their faces after that set.  I am not disappointed.

I give my kid stickers, one time, and look what happens

On my way back to our world I spy this piece of backstage equipment, customized within an inch of its life.

Joe is interviewed by the home team

As Steve Vai prepares to go on Joe is interviewed by a couple of local industry gear guys.  The two gents represent a large-ish Japanese instrument manufacturer that benefits healthily from the visibility offered to them through Joe’s exclusive use of their product in performance.  I am not convinced the man on the right is entirely comfortable with his recording device.

Newcastle and environs

Up to Newcastle, on the Central Coast, where we play at a facility that shows as an odd amalgamation of private gambling casino, public bar, children’s daycare (“not now honey, mommy’s on a roll!”) and performance center.  About two hours north of Sydney by van at 120 kmh, through low riverine valleys under broken sky.

I want my own drumstick

The sameness of the scenery causes my attention to wander, and I grab one of Eric Valentine’s sticks 3B wood tipped drumsticks.  Is this his actual signature?

shop window - what are they really saying?

There is extra time after line check and I escape the facility to wander the surrounding neighborhood.  Many band members are at the MacDonald’s down the street because it has free and functional wifi.  Walls facing the street display posters for upcoming shows as well as other entreaties.

some things never change

Can you squeal?  Do you look good?  hmmm….okay, cool.  What, you have a van?  Right.  You’re in.

dusk in a park - Newcastle

everyone home for dinner

The rains have stopped and the warm thick humid air is the right temperature for wandering aimlessly.  Gathering dusk means time to head back to the venue, though.  Luke will be starting soon and that means I’ll grab a bass, warm up my fingers, change clothes and stretch.  When Vai’s set begins then I know we’re close and I start to get antsy.  O yes, these are all part of being prepared, of being professional.  Those details observed, a good time can be had.  The icing on this splendid cake arrives when the sound on stage is great.  That’s when the music becomes magic.

Back at the venue after an enjoyable ramble I encounter two old friends in conversation.

imagine them as teenagers

Imagine them as teenagers together.  Hanging out in Joe’s room maybe, playing guitar, watched over by posters of Alice Cooper and Jimi Hendrix.  Downstairs Mom is cooking and if Steve is going to stay over for dinner he’ll have to give his Mom a call to let her know.  There’s a single family phone number and he’ll use the kitchen wall phone with a long coiled cable twisted into an impossible knot.  There’s no answering machine but a pad of paper and pencil are close at hand to take messages.

it's not so hard to do

Did Mom and Dad despair that their kids would never “amount to anything?” I know mine did.  Thankfully, their predictions were correct.

Philip Bynoe gets the funk on my P.

Luke’s set done, Vai’s set about to begin, Philip wanders by and I coerce him into trying my Precision bass.  It’s like a ukelele in his hands.  The oversized knobs make him laugh.  We’ll be up soon.

in which the tourist encounters human nature in new territory

I take the opportunity to wander through a city I’ve never been, in a country I’ve never seen, populated with creatures unfamiliar and strange.  I let my feet be my guide, moving slowly through the dense downtown of south Sydney, the lower part of the urban sprawl, by the harbor.

a blue-suited smoker rests under a fig tree in Hyde Park

The air is humid following heavy rainfall, traffic is heavy too, and cool green parks are a welcome respite.

a cross section of Sydneysiders (& tourists) awaits its instructions

The city is Western in character, English speaking and very businesslike.

taxi in downtown Sydney

Taxi drivers are uniformed, the cars are clean.  I am comforted by this.

the Shouting Man

Close in with expensive shops and highly motivated 1st Worlders (myself included) is the Shouting Man.  He shouts.  It’s loud.  It’s incomprehensible.  It sounds like gargling blood or maybe distorted reversed audio samples from 1930′s-era Looney Tunes sound effects.  I give him some coins.  How thin is the line that separates his act from mine?

sign on the street - Sydney

Let the revolution be a peaceful revolution.

it's a living...

I stop down a small flight of stairs to browse a tiny shop specializing in vintage and bootleg vinyl records.  Neville, swilling red wine in the early afternoon, declares he will open a bar adjacent to the back wall of this basement in a month or two, thereby combining two unstoppable cultural movements.  I ask whether the chicken or the egg…?  During our conversation it comes out what I am about and why I am here, in Sydney, Australia.  “I don’t like Joe Satriani,” he says.  “He’s a very nice man,” I say (thinking to myself: whimsical, too), “a musician first.”  His wine glass empty, he heads over to the counter.  I head out up into the open air.

Is the publisher's estimation of your character correct?

Knowing the power of words and thought to influence action I cannot help being taken aback when I see the popularity of this mean-spirited sentiment expressed through the wildly popular cultural activity of commerce.  It makes me sad.  You’re not an idiot, I’m not an idiot and I would never speak thus to a child.

gorgeous ceiling

I look up from the items on display and must immediately lie on the floor in a reverse, supine plank to get a photo of this beautiful stained glass ceiling.

you've got to watch for these...they'll tear your arm off.

Back on the street.  My wanderings are without plan, I’m looking at everything.

Christo was here.

Through a wide open door I slide into St. Mary’s Cathedral during a sparsely attended daytime service.  I lurk in the shadows, observing the rituals.

but how does it breathe?

I am intrigued by the carefully bound objects – statuary? – that populate the stage or “altar,” as they call the business end of this performance space.  It’s a fine line that separates their act from mine.

and the acoustics...

The structure is glorious and the Gregorian chanting puts me into a fugue state of celestial musical harmony.  I cautiously approach a priest behind the scenes while he tucks away his smoking incense device in a walkway below and away from the altar.  I quietly ask would he please tell me the significance of the purple coverings?  Looking at me with some alarm he fairly spits: “It’s the Passion,” continuing brusquely, “now please move away, the choir is coming.”  I look at him quickly, surprised at his vehemence, say nothing and move to the side.  It’s his show after all.  I’m a professional, too.  I crouch down to get a photo of the choir walking toward us and another robed character alongside the older priest calls to me: “Do not take pictures here!”  It’s too much.  I place the lens cap on my camera.  Striding quickly up to the older priest and planting myself inches from his face I say clearly and quietly directly into his eyes: “I’m terribly sorry and I shall stop right away.”  He looks away, backs away, opens the door to the refectory and slips inside.  His tight-lipped minion pinches off another order that I “stand aside” but by then I’m nowhere near them.  I watch as a robed coterie of healthy male teens on the cusp of adulthood stride by.  Maybe they’re in the “Embrace Youth” group advertised on the web site of this church encouraging an “active practice of our faith.”  It’s plain as day.

beliefs are useful if they help you

After the boys have turned from the hall into private chambers I notice the tight-lipped minion still carefully observing me.  I give him a big thumbs up.  Nice work mate, I think, how’s that Christian charity working out?  But I don’t speak my thoughts.  I turn my back on him and his “Belief System for Dummies” and wander outside, grateful for my freedom.  A statue of a nun expresses apology and offers forgiveness.  She knows what they’re up to in there.

Sister Mary Elephant

It’s my own fault of course.  I started it.  I head down to the water.

In sunlight by Sydney harbor

I wander among tourists in the sun, people on holiday, schoolchildren on outings, the hospitality trade, color and the warm air.

the good ship Southern Swan will take you on a three hour tour

It’s a glorious day and my pace slows and slows until I am passed on the sidewalk by grandmothers towing toddlers and pushing perambulators attached to inevitable balloons.

a group on the Sydney Harbor bridge tour

A carefully moving line of people high above street level is part of the Sydney Harbor bridge tour, an expensive and carefully marketed guided escort around the infrastructure of the 1932 bridge.  Couched in coy terms of gutsy, courageous exhortation, the branding is not unlike one of those hundred mile bike rides (“the danger!” “the accomplishment!” “the relief!” “the peak experience!”) benefiting medical research.  In a guerrilla action back in 1984 I climbed the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge with John Law.  I wish I still had the photos I took that night.

have you seen the bridge?

It’s almost time to meet the van taking us to the show tonight in Newcastle, two hours north of Sydney.  I head back to the hotel.

early Sydney

I pass by many buildings from the first days of Western civilization in Australia (the Fatal Shore).  It reminds a little me of New Orleans, LA, in the U.S.

modern Sydney

But now skyscrapers dominate the landscape.  It’s time for the show.