The Rock Your iBalls Off Tour - 2013

To this day I'm still unclear as to why it was called that. Anyhoo....

Despite the fact that Jasmin, our resident BTS videographer, could not accompany us on the second half of our tour last year, I've still decided to blog about one of the most musically spontaneous and fun touring experiences of my life.

Just a few days before the end of the Honestly tour, Tyler approached the band and asked us if we would want to join him for what was originally slated to be a purely solo acoustic tour. After double-checking schedules and making sure that we could make it work, tour management kicked it into high gear in order to make sure we all had the proper equipment and travel arrangements. Once we were ready to go, the issue of just what the heck we were going to actually play needed to be addressed.

After spit-balling a few ideas and discussing what of the new songs from the Honestly record could or could not be performed in a 4-piece acoustic format, an idea came to me backstage before our show in Frankfurt. I approached Tyler with the idea of sculpting a set around the theme of a biographical jaunt through his career. It would be like VH1's 'Storytellers': not only could he tell some of the tales that inspired the music, but we could construct the show chronologically. He would start the show by himself, talking about some of the first songs he ever uploaded to YouTube (which were solo acoustic performances), and then gradually walk through each stage of his career up to the recording and release of Honestly.

Tyler loved the idea, and so the Rock Your iBalls Off Tour finally had its shape.

Buy This Album - 'Unstoppable Momentum' by Joe Satriani

Now before anyone goes rolling their eyes or exhaling too deeply over the idea of being told to buy a CD without a single lyric on it, hear me out. (I’m not going to let this review deteriorate into a discussion on the merits of listening to music without lyrics. Just know this: you should.)

In the world of guitar gods, soloists, shredders, face melters, and mind-bending musical weirdos, Joe Satriani has always done an impeccable job of standing out from the rest. The biggest reason for this, as far as I can tell, is not a dearth of comparable licks, technique, skill, or musicality (when it comes to rock guitar, Satriani is one of the best alive.) It’s a commitment to keeping his music grounded in the things that most of us are always craving in every album we listen to: groove, feel, dynamics, and melody. Far too often, instrumental artists allow their art to take them far beyond the boundaries of what most non-musicians can stomach or appreciate, losing any sense of relevance or listenability along the way. Satriani has always been great not only for his chops, but for his accessibility – here’s a guitar master who’s downright easy to listen to.

Just Give Me More Art

Recently, a man was paralyzed during a Crossfit weightlifting competition. Without getting into the details or trying to start another online argument over the merits of Crossfit (really, really not the point of this post), the long-story-short version of events is that an athlete failed a lift, dropped the heavily-weighted bar, and collapsed backwards, only to have the bar rebound off of an obstruction and into his back, fracturing his spine. As you might imagine, the online fitness world is all a buzz with all of the "should he/shouldn't he" and "what should have been done differently" stuff.

My chiropractor (of all people) said something to me during our discussion of this unfortunate accident that has stuck with me since: "Just give me more art."

Let me back up.

Ricky Lawson (1954-2013)

Photo cred: www.drummerworld.com

There are a handful of drummers whose work resonates with me in a particular way that other drummers' simply doesn't. As I'm sure is the case with other fields of artistic endeavor, there are those cats who have gone before and are doing what you want to be doing that just make you go, "Yeeeeessssssss......" when you hear them: the kind of excitement that emerges due to a uncanny sense of recognition.

They resonate because you identify with them.

Now, I don't mean "identify" in the sense of shared history (growing up in the same hometown, for instance) or even because they're playing with artists you would love to perform with yourself, but because how they happen to feel the music and how they communicate through the instrument seems to be the exact same thing you would choose to do in that particular musical situation. When you hear what they do, you find yourself saying, "Yeah, that's what I would do." (Or would want to do, at least.)

Ricky Lawson was one of those guys for me.

Honestly Tour 2013 - Nürnberg

And so, the German leg of Tyler Ward's 2013 Honestly tour came to a close in Nürnberg. The show included the requisite final show pranks - including flour dumped all over my drumkit, Barba masked behind a cardboard cutout T-Ward face during the opening tune, and a few choice jokes of our own for openers 3A & Alex G. And, despite the tiny closet of a green room backstage, it was a great sendoff for a truly unique tour. The next day, it was onto our hastily assembled Rock Your iBalls Off Acoustic Tour (that wasn't purely acoustic) for the rest of the continent. 

The city of Nürnberg opened itself up to some short schedule sightseeing the next day before our departure to Switzerland. We had been through the city before, but, like so many others, never really seen it. (And, to be fair, I still don't believe that I've really seen it. But, the ever-curious travelhound in me digresses.) Our hotel happened to be located within the city's old town, and the combination of delicious restaurants, classic architecture, small streets, and beautiful churches (not to mention the stalwart medieval-era city walls) made for a captivating final memory of Germany in 2013.

The Honestly Tour's final night.

Delicious food, beautiful churches, medieval fortifications:
Nürnberg's got it all.

Honestly Tour 2013 - Freiburg

There's nothing quite like playing on a stage Miles Davis once performed on. For a cat like me, getting to do that was a pretty rad experience.

And Freiburg itself was, in a more total sense, a pretty rad experience. The stage and the room were sort of bizarre and cool, the crowd was great, and the overall vibe affected how we performed the show. It was a bit more loose and not as high-strung. More jazzy, if you will. Which, when you're playing at a venue called the Jazzhaus, is a good thing.

Another great memory from that day was running into a few of our fellow countrymen whilst doing our laundry down the street from the venue. We Americans tend to notice each other in places where English is a second language, so we invited our new acquaintances to the show later that night. So far, not all that unusual. What was more unusual was the fact that they actually showed up. Here's hoping we played well.... wouldn't want to be a bunch of ugly American rock stars and embarrass the other foreigners, now would we?

Click.

Honestly Tour 2013 - Frankfurt

So, there we were, on the outskirts of Frankfurt, performing our show at a venue called Batchskapp. (Everyone say it with me now: Batchskapp. Batchs. Kapp. Batchskapp!)

I possess several great memories from that night: the single best pre-show meal of the entire tour (some homemade schnitzel worth slapping your sister for), Alex G sporting a Muscle Milk tee during her performance, and a classic encounter with the blatant lies of the entertainment media: an interview conducted a few days before for a German music magazine found its way backstage and we all had a rollicking laugh over a few things Tyler most definitely did not say. (If you know Tyler at all, you know one of the things he would never think to do during an interview about his career would be to compare himself to Sigmund Freud.)

Don't trust the media, folks. As we say here in Colorado, take what they say with a huge grain of salt. If they're willing to just make up lies about a little band like ours, I'm sure you can deduce what they'd be willing to say about other more prevalent celebrities.

Yeah, yeah, I know. I just intimated that we're celebrities. Weird.

Batchskapp.

Backstage nap time.