Day 3: First Show - New York, NY
Nau mai
Yesterday was a big day. We played a one hour set at the Gov Ball festival and spent about six or seven hours either side of that getting ready and unready.
It was a stunner of a morning in the borough of Queens, New York City. From my room I could see Flushing Creek and Flushing Bay, the Whitestone Expressway, and the great clock tower of U-Haul Moving & Storage, Flushing.
It looks like Jon could see largely the same view from his room as he starts his day with a bag of chips.
I ordered breakfast from the menu at Hotel Indigo, Flushing, a meal called “Morning Sunrise”, if I remember correctly. It was a yoghurt parfait with banana, blueberries, a frozen raspberry, dried cherries, and granola. On the side was a leafy salad with toasted walnuts and tomato.
Late in the morning we were picked up from our hotel and driven to the festival at Flushing Meadows Corona Park. We arrived at the grounds and were met with the first piece of a layered security perimeter, this one a checkpoint with bomb-sniffing dogs and a metal detector. We disembarked the van so the dog could board and sniff and then we reembarked. We then drove to the next perimeter and disembarked from our van again, this time unloading our equipment and opening all bags and equipment cases so the security man could have a cursory grope of the contents. Then we passed through another metal detector before loading our gear into a new van and continuing into the festival. There was a final layer of security which was very light, a man that came in with a handheld scanner to bleep all of our wristbands, and then a dog which did a cursory sniff around the outside of the vehicle. And then we were in. Free to roam the festival grounds with impunity (except for when we wanted to go to our stage to set up which which meant passing one more small security check).
Flushing Meadows Corona Park was the site of the 1964 World’s Fair and there are several attractions still standing after that event. See below the heavily scaffolded observation towers which are currently under restoration, the tallest of which soars 69 metres above the park.
In the background of this shot is the Tent of Tomorrow, the centrepiece of the fair’s pavilion, and in the foreground is the Maloof Skate Park.
This is our green room in the artist village, a heavily air conditioned portacom hidden amongst lush foliage.
Side of stage, getting set up to play. Everything is set up on a pair of wheeled stage risers which can quickly be moved into position when it is our time to set up.
Here is our new bus, Moonrise. A very handsome and gleaming vehicle.
Some of the features: Tiled stairs! No more dirty carpeted stairwells for us. Granite and wood veneer is the luxury we now afford for ourselves.
There are only eight bunks on this bus, a layout that is known in the industry as “condo bunks”.
Jon executes a maneuver while packing the trailer.
Here is an update on my pick. Still going strong after about five or six shows, the Gravity Gold .75mm is a resilient piece of equipment. This plastic recipe seems to be a good one and I have noticed very little deterioration in the tip shape.
A spectacular sunset: Looking down through the truck parking towards the Unisphere, a stainless steel sculpture of the earth constructed for the 1964 World’s Fair by the American Bridge Company. This globe is 37m in diameter.
We watched NZ pop star Lorde close out the first night of the Governor’s Ball festival. It was an impressive set with dazzling audiovisual effects and an immaculate musical performance.
Here are the fireworks that marked the closing of the evening.