Santana Tour Report #12

Greek Theater in Los Angles: i did an interview with CNN for our upcoming TV Special and Entertainment Tonight will do a piece on the Special for their weekend edition on September 28th… it’s curious that PBS stations in every major market have scheduled our program (including New York, Miami, San Francisco, Atlanta and Boston), but the Los Angeles PBS affiliate hasn’t so far…

i also had Gino’s cappuccino again, and it was a masterpiece as usual… but i am starting to miss Santa Fe… less noise, less people…

Santana Tour Report #11

The Greek Theater in Los Angeles: what a wonderful venue… great sound… we had quite a few people dancing during our brief show… AND so many people seem to want to dance to our music that we are putting a nine-piece RHUMBA BAND together for next year: 3 guitarists, 3 drummers, bass and small horn section… it’ll be loads of fun… 2 1/2 hours of nothing but the RRRhumbas from my 8 CDs…

anyway, the Santana audience was fantastic and we had a great time… also, today we had some great cappuccini at last, made by Gino at Alto Palato, easily the best coffee in Los Angeles!! what an uplift after the horrible Java in San Diego… three or four bands are staying at the Riothouse on Sunset (the Hyatt) today… we ran into our friend Eric Schermerhorn, who is across the street at the House of Blues, playing guitar with “They Might be Giants”… Carl and i know Eric from our time in Boston, 11 years ago, and Carl’s band opened for Bowie’s Tin Machine, in which Eric played guitar as well…

after the show some of us went to see Fishbone, others went to a club … i went to Greenblatt’s, bought a couple of bottles of red wine, and went back to my hotel room and chilled… the mere thought of lots of people and loud music was too much for me…

Santana Tour Report #10

San Diego: we are staying at a hotel in the old gaslight district so that the crew can go out drinking at night and crawl back to the hotel… i went sailing w Stefan, Patch and Carl yesterday… wonderful weather, perfect wind… feeling the sun and the salty ocean breeze, surrounded by water… hm, nothing better… this morning i tried to get a decent cup of coffee and was denied… i will have to put my own espresso machine on the bus, ’cause this is rediculous… read more of Ken Wilber’s “A Brief History of Everything”… he’s an American visionary and wrote an amazing book, utterly amazing in scope and depth and really another example of this age of INTEGRATION… that’s what the end of the 20th century is really about: INTEGRATION… to integrate science AND religion… to integrate various types and traditions of music into a global approach…etc. etc…

When i heard the sound of the bell ringing, there was no i, and no bell, just the ringing

Santana Tour Report #8

from the concord pavillion: what a difference a soundcheck makes!! after getting our first soundcheck since last friday in Reno, i walk around with a big smile ’cause i can finally hear myself… we play louder than ever and peak at 103 decibel, but Santana’s band breaks new records and peaks at 120 decibel at the mixing console in the back of the venue… the band was creating about 110 decibel of volume on stage alone… i think 120 decibel is how loud a jet is at take-off!!!

when i go up to play the duetts w Carlos, i wear my in-ear monitors and have only my guitar in them and yet the roar of his band on stage is deafening… it’s the total rock & roll experience!!! we play 3 songs with the Santana band and when Carlos starts up “Samba Pa Ti”, his home-crowd goes nuts… it’s pretty amazing to perform that song with him: i remember hearing Santana in concert in Cologne, Germany in 1974, and i remember receiving the 3 LP Santana album that was recorded live in Japan for Christmas that year and learning to play “Samba Pa Ti” from the record…