We headed out of SJC at 6:30am on Thursday, and arrived in Seattle a couple hours later. We were greeted by over cast skies and pure beauty! The weather was a calm and mild 68 degrees and the city was surrounded by tall, thick evergreens!
From there we were driven to Bellevue where we relaxed for a bit then headed out with Toni's mom who helps out with the shopping for the company. We ran around town, between a few stores, to get what was needed to feed the band and their crew. I thought I had a long list when I go shopping...sheeesh!
A few hours later, back at home-base in Bellevue, we finally packed up the vans and headed out to the Gorge which was 2 hours east of there. A beautiful drive = mountains, trees, settling fog, drizzly clouds...then rocky mountain backdrops, country roadsides, sunny skies, billowy clouds...
We had to stop and pull over to capture some of the scenery on film:)
About a half mile before the entrance to the amplitheatre, there was Cave B, the winery where Dave and the band, family and friends I'm sure, stayed for the weekend. We were actually not suppose to be on this "private property" but we couldn't resist....we drove onto the premises and quickly snapped a few pics of the grounds.
We continued to the Gorge and prepared to settle for the night. We unloaded the vans and got organized and somewhat familiar of the layout of our set up areas. With the completion of the first day, our immediate crew sat and got to know each other over pizza and beer! As the night grew darker a few of us couldn't resist climbing up onto the stage and getting a personal perspective of the view of a rock star! Yeeeowww!! Ok, so there were no mics, but we pretended;)~ Soon after we were a little spooked by the lights of an oncoming flashlight in our direction....it ended up just being someone heading towards the restrooms, wissshhoo~Thrill was over and we headed back to our habitat dome for the night:)
With only a few hours of sleep, we awoke bright and early to start the real first day of work...so the habitat dome that we claimed as our sleeping area, needed to be cleaned up first thing, to be transformed into a make shift guest room for the band and their close guests on nights of the show. Hey..no problem, anything for DAVE, right?! After driving up to the showers at the top of the hill, we quickly came back to start setting up. I must say, I've worked for a couple different catering companies years ago, but NEVER had I worked a job were the view from a single station was so breathtaking.
It definitely made all the back breaking work that was involved, more tolerable for sure:) I think I forgot how much work goes into on-site catering. It's non-stop moving and walking and/or running from start to finish. Back and forth, back and forth. I initially intended to document the entire trip through pictures, especially hoping to capture shots of the band and behind the scenes footage. Unfortunately, because we were part of the "backstage crew", we were NOT allowed to take any form of photography:( BUMMED!! AGH!! However the first highlight was at 4pm, when Dave and the band started sound check! We were outside food prepping, and were being serenaded at the same time:) Could it get any better? Yea, if I was able to take pictures of it...but ya know...
At 5pm dinner started and we were ready to monitor the dinning room and be the extra help that was needed. Most of the band's crew came in to eat first, but eventually Dave himself made his way into the room to get his grub on;) He hung out in the dining room for awhile, catching up with friends, and then made his way right outside where picnic tables were arranged to sit at. A short while after, Nicole and I thought there wasn't a better time than the present, for us to take a break and go outside ourselves....hmmm...and what do you know...as we were walking over to one of the tables to sit down, Dave was walking over towards us:) He was looking right at us, I smiled, he smiled, so I had to just do it. I continued in his direction and said hello. Nicole and I introduced ourselves, and although I was a little starstruck, I was able to speak like an intelligible human, haha. He was polite and carried a smooth demeanor so it was nice. Then I sat down and couldn't eat or talk for about 10 minutes...hahah. I'm such a nerd, I know! But did I mention that I am a huge fan...hahaha
The concert started around 8pm and the rest of the evening for us, was cleaning up from the dinner and tearing down all of the stations. At about 10pm, Nicole and I were able to through in the dish rag (yes literally, we even washed dishes) and go out on the lawn and watch the rest of the concert. YAY!
Being that this particular night was the first night of this three day tour in Washington, DMB had put together an after-party for all the staff, following the concert. Three hauling buses were backed up to the stage ramp and opened for one bar, one storage for equipment, and one that I don't even know what, cause I didn't get a chance to scope it out. Unfortunately, I didn't get to this party until about a half hour before last call. Honestly, at that point the party was pretty much a bust anyways. They were playing crappy music (amplified radio) and everyone else was already drunk. However, waiting ourselves to get into the bar area, me and one of my co-workers were just hanging out and who comes walking down the bar ramp?? Dave!! haha And he looks at me, points at me and walks over to me! For a second, I got excited...then got paranoid cause "why is he pointing at me?" "do I have something on my face, omg?"haha I pulled down a little on the bill of my hat and as he stood in front of me looking and pointing at me, I asked him "what??" And he says, "I don't know, I just like pointing at you!" What....ummm, cause he does that all the time?? Weird. But who cares, it's Dave right? haha
The night ended there pretty much. The party was over and I went to go find Nicole. She had started to not feel well the beginning of the evening. She was dealing with some physical issues and she had gone to find a spot to rest at. By morning, her illness hadn't gotten any better and she needed to get home. The combination of the strenuous physical labor, and the lack of comfortable amenities, we decided that we would cut this trip short for us and just head home early. That morning we caught a cab, that drove us to Sea/Tac airport 3 hours away...We took the next flight out and was back in San Jose around 7ish that night.
Ok, so there it was, we had officially completed our ultimate mission! We met Dave. Screw all the other stuff, right?
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