A couple of comments concerning the show at Orlando's House of Blues. I wasn't part of the Patronet team, though I did get to wave at Prairie, John, Jesse and MaryLou as they arrived and tried to figure out which door to go in. Jesse continues to look like a TR clone and MaryLou seemed like she had dozens of details running through her head. As I took my place in line, I met some nice non-TR-Connection folks...they had no idea what they were in for, some not seeing him for 20 years, some bringing their teenage kids (who wore their parents old Todd tour shirts...cool!).
The start of the show gave me the same chills that I got from the start of all the Adventure shows. Hearing the soundtrack play through the PA (in stereo) along with the beginning of the light effects was amazing. Unfortunately, when the band kicks in, it gets lost in the muddiness that others have commented on. Things improved during the second half, but probably more because of the song selection and not any adjustments at the soundboard.
Set List: Pretty much was the same. Love Science made the cut tonight and it rocked. Liars was great, but painful to watch Todd screaming...you kind of want him to take good care of the vocal chords. A very anti-religion toneearly on in the song selection...we get the point. No WWE, and Born to Synthesize needs to be shortened. Sweet was beautiful. Sould Brother was fun. In the end, I stopped some folks from leaving by telling them that Hello It's Me was about to be played.
Costumes: They looked great, especially second half colors.
Sound: Besides comments above, Todd's guitar sounded great most of the time. Only complaint is that he's way too distracted by the computer interface for managing the sounds. I kept thinking of people in corporate meetings wasting too much time with their Palm Pilots as opposed to participating fully in the meeting.
Stage Setup: It worked, but reminded me of a trade show booth (when you look closer, it looks kind of flimsy). Prairie's cage was shaking with his playing. The ironing board keyboards for Kasim and Jesse looked more like props than real musical instruments. But I can appreciate the balance of convenience in storage, setup and looks...so in the end, it was a great investment.
Chit-Chat: Pretty much non existent from Todd and way too excessive from folks in the theater.
T-shirts: Is it too much to ask for performers to use better quality for the merchandise? I'm ok paying more for better quality.
Final note, the frequent trips backstage for Todd seemed awkward, I heard a lot of people commenting on them, "Is he doing groupies, using an oxygen machine, smoking weed."
Anyway, thanks for a great show Todd and crew! We appreciate all the great music and entertainment over the years.
