Music Man show !

22/8/09

Its 4:30AM and I have just come in from the after show party.

Today was a great day. This morning I went to meet Henri Benaim who is the director of an art gallery out here. I saw the guy on a CNN program the other day and tracked him down. He is originally a New Yorker but has been living in Beijing working successfully in the art world. I arranged to meet him to get an insight into the local galleries and over a cup of coffee in Starbucks he was able to give me a great deal of help and direction. From there we went off on Henri’s direction to find some galleries.

We took a short Taxi ride to an area called 798 which is an old industrial complex which has now been transformed into an art district with studios galleries and all kinds of unusual little shops.

We wandered there for a few hours before going back to the stadium where we had arranged to take photos of Leehom with Bahamut. We also were photographing Jingles and the new bass that I built for him. What a great thing it was to see a guitar that I just completed a couple of hours before I left home being tested on such a grand stage. It looks and sounds awesome. I am looking forward to taking the bass thing further.

After sound check we went to dinner with all the musicians and some of the crew in a beautiful restaurant by a lake. It was good food with great people.

Then came the show! I had been assigned a couple of extra tickets so I invited Henri along as my guest and after meeting him at the gate we went to look for what were supposed to be VIP seats but I found myself way off to the side in horrible seats with a terrible view. I was a bit pissed off as I knew someone had made a cock up and although I had been in the stadium for the past 2 days I hadn’t been given a proper pass so I couldn’t get into the proper area so off I went to the back of the stage and after a few minutes of arguments with Chinese guards who didn’t understand what I was arguing about along came a guy from Sony and gave me the proper passes. By this time we had missed the first 30 minutes but I soon was able to settle into what was an awesome show. The stadium was filled with 45,000 people waving glow sticks. It made an unforgettable sight.

About half way through the show an unexpected guest appeared. It was Jackie Chan. Leehom genuinely knew nothing about it and nearly fell over on stage with surprise. Leehom had recently finished a film with Jackie so I guess this was a bit of PR. I had hoped Jackie would turn up at the after party but there was no sign of him.

I had a great time at the aftershow party hanging with all my new found friends and after the after show party came the after,after show party in a little club some where in Beijing where we Celebrated Patricks birthday.

Its been a long night and in fact its been a long few days so now its time for some sleep. A bunch of us are going to the Great wall tomorrow. Its going to be amazing!