Cincy aka My Own Marty Mini Solo Show

I got there early while they (sans SK and PK who I think were doing a radio interview or maybe just slacking ;-) ) were still setting up. At one point Marty was teaching Davida a song (I think it was "Spark" but I'm not absolutely sure) that they were going to do at the Rickenbacker celebration thingie a couple weeks later. I really enjoyed that not only for being able to really watch right up close what they were doing (I know squat about guitars so it was all new to me), but also for the obvious joy they both got from it.

After that Marty ran through several of his songs. Just Marty and his guitar, like he does on his solo shows. It was great! His audience was pretty much me. There were a few people working on various things, but I was pretty much the only one just enjoying the show. Gave me a little taste of one of his solo shows -- sure I'd love to get to see a full fledged one someday, but this will certainly tide me over and was very special in it's own right. I got a real sense of how much he loves music during that time and I'll never forget that. I got to tell him in Chicago how much I enjoyed that little mini show and he just beamed. Very cute.

I only talked to him a handful of times. The most memorable conversation was about how I managed to buy Jagermeister and Unicum online -- he was astonished and the look on his face was absolutely priceless. He's a very expressive guy and can be so much fun to watch. He was having problems with the sound out of his monitor the whole set up and soundcheck -- it was apparently very very loud. I don't think they ever got that worked out and there was quite a bit of gesturing, etc. during the show, but overall he did fine.

I had a table right up front between SK and MWP and videoed from there. When Marty was clearly most unhappy with the sound he was getting I made sure not to point the camera at him. I just figured I sure as hell wouldn't like someone filming me when I was pissed off, so I wasn't going to film him. I got a lot of footage of Steve and Tim in Cincy. ;-)

Overall I thought Cincinnati was the most mellow of the shows I went to. It was decent crowd although one or two people were talking loudly enough to be a bother and MWP told him/them off, much to the delight of most of the crowd. Steve was laughing through most of it and I heard him say "You better watch out, he's gonna go out and get his gun and shoot you!" to which Marty said "It would be worth it!" I don't think very many people heard what SK said because I haven't heard any comments on it, and judging by the comments on his blog when he mentions guns I think there would be. But it made me laugh.

It wasn't the best show I saw, yet it was good and I enjoyed it. What I noticed in the shows I saw this time around is that they were consistently good, and some were really excellent. I had a friend and her boyfriend come to the show. He'd heard a couple of their songs before (UTMW and Reptile), she hadn't heard any. They really enjoyed it and I must say I was very proud of my favourite band.

I've always thought of MWP as pretty flaky and a bit of a prima donna -- and I still think he is -- yet he worked his ass off on this tour. Everyone -- the musicians and crew -- did their part and they were all important to the tour's success, however I really don't think there even would have been a US tour without Marty. He (and I think Tiare) booked the tour and essentially managed all details of the tour. Not only that but he was out there every night getting everything loaded. I must say I was very impressed with the work he put in.