POPMART Leg 3: 1997, North America

Monday 5th October 2009. New York - Atlanta

I headed down to Atlanta this morning, a day before the rest of the entourage, as I wanted to do some work on the show, which is impossible on show day. I stayed late with my small team of lighting and video peeps, with me watching from way up high in the building. We went through cues and corrected things which I had noted were awry in Charlottesville when I last watched the show from the nosebleeds. There was nothing major that was wrong, just little things that aren't visible when you watch the show from the mix position and so never get noticed.

Ethan needed a little time to do some programming, so I sat and chatted with Robert, one of our site co-ordinators, who produced a bottle of fine red wine form a nearby flight case. It was good to catch up - once we get out of production rehearsals there never seems to be any time for this kind of leisurely interaction. It's a little startling to realise how close to the end of the tour we are. It only seems a moment since we were chatting and enjoying late night red wine in Barcelona. Robert has a funny and very apt cartoon on his office wall. There are two frames, the first is captioned 'For Travellers' and shows a person looking at a wall-mounted map bearing an arrow marked 'You Are Here'. The second frame is captioned 'For Time Travellers' and shows an alien looking at a wall-mounted calendar, with an arrow pointing to a particular date marked... 'You Are Here'.