Last 3 Shows - Pt. 1: The Lads and Their Pot Goldfish

Our last three shows at the Wiltern in L.A. were great. Everyone on the crew was feeling a little of that end-of-summer-camp thing and perhaps as a result, were suddenly chattier than had been for most of the tour. I'm talking mostly about the British "lads" on the crew who were responsible for the lighting, and setting up and breaking down the stage every night. They routinely played soccer (that is, "football") or frisbee backstage when there was enough room. They were a young and raucous bunch with whom we didn't have a huge amount in common, but we still appreciated their zest for..life? Pot? Alcohol? Once I mentioned that I knew a tiny bit of Cockney rhyming slang, they went off on a long tangent attempting to teach me all of the Cockney Rhyming slang they could think of. Then one we got to the California portion of the tour, they were stoned on pot "Goldfish" the ENTIRE WEEK. They couldn't get over that it was legal.

The guy who filled the riders at the Wiltern had definitely been snacking on the pot Goldfish long before they were legal and could never quite get our rider right. How hard is it to get lemons, ginger and fruit? Apparently, very. The dressing rooms were very rock and roll. They looked kind of like bordellos with wallpaper and a lot of gold and black. But as Sascha, the Asst. Production Manager so kindly pointed out, the couches were "wipeable" (aka: plastic), which turned out to be fortuitous since I did spill my tea on them.

The Wiltern is another one of these amazing old theaters built in the 20s. The whole building is a seafoam green/aqua. We stayed a few blocks away at a ridiculously trendy hotel called The Line. The lads called it a "concrete bunka,'" which it was. But it was a concrete bunker with very trendy linens and nice views of the Hollywood Hills. It had a restaurant and pool, but not the kind of pool a kid would be welcomed at. More like a pool with a dj and a lot of twenty-somethings dangling their legs in while drinking cocktails. The entire crew and Erasure stayed there too so occasionally we'd see one of them in the lobby in their Motorhead/Slayer t-shirt looking a little overwhelmed.

Reed and I always like the shows where there is a general admission "pit," because it means we have a bit of a captive audience- the people who are securing their good spots near the stage for the Erasure set. It was an especially rowdy crowd on Saturday and Sunday. Maybe because it was L.A., or because it was the end of the tour. I saw a guy in the front who had been at all the East Coast shows. There were probably a bunch of Erasure super-fans who were in a celebratory mood. Since we have done mostly the same set every night, I rarely forget a line or anything because it's pretty much ingrained as muscle memory at this point. Though occasionally Reed will throw me for a loop by playing the line from "Love with Tear Us Apart" at the Beginning of "Dark Matter." He did this once before and I was momentarily distracted, but recovered fast enough to remember the lyrics. He promised he'd warn me next time, but somehow he did it again on Sunday. It was kind of awesome because it made me laugh. And when Reed did his Depeche Mode reference at the end of the set on Sunday, it got a louder cheer than usual.

A couple of minutes before going out on stage for the last show, Reed and I looked at each other and remarked that we really hadn't thought beyond this point. It was kind of like trying to conceive of the nothingness before the big bang. Just a big blank.