Day 13: Berkeley, Pt 2
Welcome
Yesterday we played our second show at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, California.
Breakfast was my first achievement of the day. I had a list of recommendations burning a hole in my inbox and from the list I picked the first one, walking a mile down Shattuck Avenue to Saul’s Restaurant and Delicatessen. It was a pleasant spot to dine. Tables were set up on the footpath and surrounded by planter boxes gushing with wildflowers that brought the feeling of spring to this autumn morning. The menu at Saul’s was intense but I used my skills, sticking to the first page which was the breakfast menu and picking out a breakfast pita with scrambled eggs, za’atar, herbs, tahina, and harissa.
I spent a couple of hours in the afternoon working on the blog and then headed up to the venue, enjoying a pleasant walk up the hill which took me through the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. It is a very handsome campus with all the trimmings you’d expect for one of the US’s most prestigious universities: paths, lawns, buildings with columns, and those trees that should be a lot taller, but they get aggressively pruned every year, so they look a bit stumpy.
My second achievement for the day was climbing to the top of the Berkeley Hills. I went for a run leaving from the Greek Theatre and setting out along a street lined with fraternity houses bearing names like Sigma Chi and Delta Foxtrot. After a while I reached the beginning of the Stonewall-Panoramic trail which took me up a set of steps and onto a dirt road leading steeply up the hillside. All my practise of running on the flat was for naught as I struggled up this gradient, spurred on by the basic instinct to yearn for a view. It was worth every kilojoule spent though for at the top I could see all the way to the Golden Gate, with the skyscrapers of San Francisco breaking up the curve of the hills and the bay sprawled out in the foreground.
The rest of our afternoon evening passed as expected. We soundchecked and then ate dinner before retiring to the greenroom and beginning our preshow routines. If you had been wandering around the backstage yesterday at 6pm you might have come across scenes like Tristan warming up on the practise pad, or Jon pacing around with his guitar playing scales, or Liz warming up her voice with the use of steam and vocal warmups, or the author trying to write a quick paragraph before it’s time to get ready. At 6:20pm we were next to the stage standing in our huddle, going over the final plays for the night and waiting while Reno the stage manager counts down the minutes before curtain call. At 6:30 on the dot Gabe pushed play on our intro music and we walked out in front of a very friendly Bay Area audience, checked the tuning on our instruments, pressed go on the fish launch button, and Tristan counted off the first song.
We enjoyed our set and also enjoyed not having to do a full pack down, heading straight out into the audience just in time to catch the opening notes of Transatlanticism. Each night I enjoy focusing on a different part of the show and last night was a lights show for me. I was seated further back in the amphitheatre and the high viewing angle was a game changer, providing the depth and angle to see the way the lighting cues dance across the crowd looking like the lines and colours of a 1980s video game.
