End of the Roadie

I have officially reached the end of my roadie days. I had a great time but it sure is nice to be back in New Orleans in my own bed driving my own car and having my own fridge. I made some friends that I will hopefully run into again soon. The last show I recorded was a pretty good one. Scoop up a copy at the Hittin' the Note website or download it at ABBlive.com. They played neither of the songs I wanted to hear nor "Gambler's Roll" which would have been so appropriate for a casino show, but oh well.

After the show in Council Bluffs, IA, I caught a flight out of Omaha and back to New Orleans. Neither the Omaha nor the Houston airports have free or even cheap wireless so I was instead reduced to doing something more useful with my time anyway: reading. I picked up a book called The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times journalist Thomas L. Friedman.

It is an LP, if you will, of an essay about a increasingly shrinking world. In it, he argues that the world, with its outsourcing, offshoring, multinational corporations, and ever increasing numbers of knowledge centers is getting smaller. Our cultures are slowly merging and as more and more countries advance, it forces the world leader, America, to innovate at an astounding rate. Really interesting read.

In other news, the Gregg Allman Band is coming to New Orleans in October and I've been asked to at least stop by and visit my new found friends in the roadie world, which is fairly exciting. Also, tons of great music is coming to New Orleans in the next two months.

9/12 Heartless Bastards at One Eyed Jacks
9/15 The Meat Puppets (with both brothers!) at One Eyed Jacks
9/16 Indigo Girls at Tipitina's
9/18 Arctic Monkeys at House of Blues
9/20 Biz Markie and the Roots at House of Blues
9/21 Henry Rollins at House of Blues
9/23 Interpol at House of Blues
9/30 Turbonegro at One Eyed Jacks
10/4 Rilo Kiley at The Republic
10/5 George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic at House of Blues
10/10 Blitzen Trapper at The Parish
10/17 Gregg Allman Band at House of Blues
10/25 The Hives at One Eyed Jacks

And that doesn't include Voodoo Fest, which I will cover in full at a later date.