Well, the long-awaited Midwest Tour has finally begun and all is going well. So much work has been done, in advance, by the tour promoter, the venues and us to make sure this is a musically excellent tour. There are so many logistics: air transportation, bus transportation, technical requirements, lodging, making sure we can maintain a modicum of comfort as we bus across 11 states and 9,000 miles during the 29-city portion of our Midwest Tour.
Our bus company, Stagecoach West, has provided us with a new coach bus with a few excellent upgrades (a nice leather couch that converts to a bed, a refrigerator, a small "lounge" with a table, some AC electricity to power our laptops, phone chargers, PDAs, Blackberries, and an open area in the back, where we have literally created an entire office with a desk, laptops, printer, files, cell phones...we even have internet access while we're "rolling"). Our driver, Gary, has been great.
We have a technical/stage manager, Ross, who is traveling with us - with our own sound equipment to make sure we have the best possible sound at each gig.
Our musicians, who literally come from all over the country, all converged on the city of Minneapolis on October 14th, where we rehearsed nearby, hung out at the "Mall of America" and, eventually, boarded the bus for our first tour date, which was in Fairmont, Minnesota on October 16th.
Steve Sigmund is my very capable music director, who is the backbone of the tour, acting as conductor, trombonist, road manager, venue liason, bus "mom", T-shirt design consultant.
We're excited about our new T-shirts that we're selling on the tour. The design was a real collaborative effort and they look really cool! They have a casual photo of me on the front that has been digitally modified with an Andy Warhol-ish effect. On the back, it says: "Steve Lippia & His Orchestra" "'Simply Sinatra' Tour 2007 - 2008" By the way, we're going to make them available for sale, shortly, on my website.
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