6/4/13
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| Rose Lane and Isobel..cutting up! |
Time
to move on….back to Toronto for our second show there and to Montreal
after. The normal call for bags at 10am and hotel lobby at 2 for the bus
to the airport applied. After closing up the bags, I kept my workout
gear with me in hand luggage and was able to visit the hotel gym one
more time. Rosie and I decided to skip lunch and eat something on the
plane, so we just hung in the room until leave time. Flight was very
short…less than an hour. But of course we had to go through customs and
immigration when we got there, which slowed things down. We made it back
to the Four Seasons around 6pm and threw our hand luggage in the room
and went out for cocktails and dinner….avoiding time at the hotel with
that terrible music that they pipe into the lobby and the bar. They
really need to change that.
We had a very similar room as we had last
time…with really weird and uncomfortable furniture, decor very angular
and cold. The staff of the hotel are all really nice and accommodating,
but the hotel itself leaves a lot to be desired for a Four Seasons.
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| Roses at The Four Seasons Hotel |
We
decided to go to one of our old haunts in Toronto, Soto Soto, for
dinner. It was pretty crowded and we had a short wait….just long enough
for us to go upstairs to another bar for drinks. Soon the matrade came
for us and seated us. It was nice to be back there, and we enjoyed the
meal and service. That ended the day…
6/5/13
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| Chuck Leavell on Honky Tonk Women |
A
day to kill before our show tomorrow. After morning coffee, we opened
up our bags…but didn’t unpack as we knew we wouldn’t be in Toronto all
that long. After some “wake up” time, we went out and walked along
Yorkshire St,, looking around…and had lunch at Sassafras, a nice place
on the corner of Cumberland St. Rose Lane’s main suitcase had torn
up…and I had it repaired while we were in Chicago, but unfortunately the
repair didn’t hold and it had broken again…so we looked at some bags in
a small travel store…but she wanted to look around for some other
options. We split up…her shopping for a bag and me just wandering around
the area. We met back at the hotel…and she had found a bag she liked at
the Hudson Bay store. I had arranged to do an interview with Kim
Mitchell, who is an excellent guitar player and a very popular radio
personality for Q107. Our mutual friend, Dimo Safari, had suggested it
to Kim and he was kind enough to agree to have me on. He has a huge
audience and is a famous figure in Toronto and throughout Canada. I took
a cab to the station, getting there close to 5pm. He met me in the
lobby and escorted me to the studio and introduced me over the air. Kim
was great to talk to…very knowledgeable of my career and had me on for
almost an hour. We played songs that I’m on from the Allman Brothers to
Clapton to the Stones and even a track from my recent cd, “Back To The
Woods”…“Wish Me Well”. It was a lot of fun and Kim was truly generous.
He even gave me a ride back to the hotel afterwards. Fun stuff…
Our friends
Scott and Debbie Brickner had come to Toronto for the show, and we had
arranged to have dinner with them at Joso’s (pronounced “Yo So’s”), a
really great fish restaurant not far from the Four Seasons, and a place
that we have frequented through the years when in the city. Scott and
Debbie have been to several of the Retreats we offer at Charlane, and we
have become food friends. We met up with them and walked there
together. Joso’s was as good….and probably better…than we remembered.
Rosie and I had a great time catching up with the Brickners….and Scott
graciously picked up the tab for dinner. After we finished up, we all
walked back to the hotel, ending a very nice day.
6/6/13
OK, time to
Rock it again. This would be show number thirteen (including the LA club
show). No special guest tonight, which quite frankly is good….it’s nice
to have them, but sometimes nice to make it just the Stones. Before we
left for the Air Canada Center, I hit the gym for a while, then met
with my friend Dimo, who was coming to the show with a friend of his. We
chatted for a while, then it was time to head out.
I did the set list
thing in our dressing room, putting in “Sway” and “Can’t You Hear Me
Knocking”, which would give Mick Taylor more songs to play on in the
set. We did the sound check, then had some down time to grab a bite in
catering before going to VIP to see folks there. My pal Rob Bowman, an
author and musicologist was there with his son, the Brickners and some
others were around as well, and we made the rounds. Gig was another
winner…great vibe, great energy. We didn’t bother going to the bar
afterwards, given the terrible music they play down there…so we sipped
on some wine that we had in the room and watched TV until bedtime.
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| Mick Taylor |
6/7/13
Our last
full day in Toronto, and a day off. Last chance to enjoy a great city
that we love and have spent so much time in over the years. We had a
nice relaxing start to the day, enjoying some “slow morning time”. I had
arranged for both of us to get massages with Coleen Quinn, who is a
great masseuse that lives in Toronto and who also has a place in
Vancouver. I’ve had lots of massages from her in both cities…she is
definitely one of the best of the best, and I had looked forward to it
for a couple of weeks since I contacted her. Rosie was to have hers at
around 3, me at 5. But before we went, we had another short walk around
the area and had lunch again at Sassafras. We cabbed it over to Coleen’s
place, about 3 miles away. We went together up to her apartment…it was
wonderful seeing her again, and we had a short catch up before I left to
roam the area while Rosie got her massage. I found a nice book store
not far away and browsed around, then stumbled on to a coffee house and
refreshed myself with a nice cappuccino, reading the local paper for a
while. At the appointed time, I made my way back to Coleen’s place where
they had just wound up Rose Lane’s massage. She had that “massage glow”
to her and had obviously enjoyed it. Then it was my turn…Rose Lane
decided to walk back while I got rubbed on, and Coleen did a great job
in getting some soreness out of me. I had told her about my pain in the
left hip and lower back, and she worked on that a good bit, which
helped. Afterwards, she showed me a couple of stretches to try to help
it heal. I thanked her and said goodbye, deciding to walk a bit. I
walked a mile or so, then hailed a cab as it was threatening rain and
got back to the hotel around 6:30. We relaxed in the room for a while
before going out to dinner at Il Posto, a nice Italian place near the
old Four Seasons hotel that is now being renovated into condos. It was a
nice quiet dinner…just want the Dr. ordered after our massages…and back
at the hotel we wound the day down with a couple of glasses of
Chardonnay.
6/8/13
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| St. James Hotel in Montreal |
On to
Montreal….but before leaving, we had a final walk along Yorkshire and
Cumberland…shared a pizza at a little corner restaurant and peeked in a
couple of stores. Rose Lane had found a store that sells nice scarves,
and as our daughters both had birthdays coming up, we bought them both
some for presents. That kept us busy until time to leave. We were
excited about getting to Montreal…another beautiful and unique Canadian
city….although we knew we wouldn’t be there very long. Montreal was
hosting an annual Formula One auto race, and we knew the city would be
buzzing between that and our show. Sure enough, when we arrived we could
feel the excitement…and the traffic reflected how busy the town was….it
was slow getting to the St. James Hotel, a beautiful hotel that we
stayed at the last time we played the city. But because the race had
brought so many folks to the city, we actually had to split our group up
into two hotels….the St. James and the Intercontinental, which was just
adjacent to the St. James. Fortunately, we were put in the St. James.
It is an old hotel….very elegant and well preserved with beautiful
appointments throughout. We settled into our room and waited for Tim
Ries to call us…he had invited us to go to dinner with him and was
making reservations. Tim called to say that he was working on it, but
due to the race, reservations were tight and he was waiting to hear from
the concierge about a couple of options. Rosie and I decided to walk
down and have a drink in the hotel bar…but it had been totally taken
over by a party thrown by Ferrari. The good news was that there was a
really nice sitting room…sort of a library, which was virtually empty
and quiet, and the hotel folks let us order a drink in there while we
waited to hear from Tim. It was a lovely room…beautiful chandeliers,
furniture and art. One of the portraits was of the current owner of the
hotel, ??. The gentleman that brought us our drinks told us that he had
made his fortune in the waste management business, but the St. James was
his special passion and he checked on it all the time…not allowing any
changes to be made with any of the rooms, furniture, appointments, etc
without his approval. He certainly has impeccable taste and you could
see the “love” he has given the hotel.
Tim finally
called saying that they had secured a table at Les Pyrenees, a
Spanish/French restaurant not far away. It was raining, so we wanted to
take a cab…but one of our security guys, Vince , graciously offered
Ronnie Wood’s car (which was on hold, but not being used) to take us. We
accepted, and made our way there. Tim had invited Bernard Fowler to
join us, and he met us there 10 minutes after we arrived. We had some
very good Paella and some nice wine…and great conversation between us.
Bernard left early, and Tim, Rose Lane and I stayed to finish the wine
and just hang. The rain had subsided, so we walked back to the hotel
which was only 6 or so blocks away. It had been great to spend time with
Tim and Bernard…in a setting away from the show or from the travel.
6/9/13
Win Butler of Arcade Fire was to be the guest for the show. Mick had done Saturday Night Live with Arcade Fire last year, and they did “The Last Time”, so it was agreed to do it with him again tonight. We met backstage in Mick’s dressing room as usual to go over it. We went through the arrangement and all seemed fine.
The rest of
the evening was fairly routine…catering for a bite, the usual “get
ready” of set list, wardrobe, a bit of makeup and hair fluff from
Caroline, then the stage. This was the first show that I didn’t get to
the VIP area. I did have one guest…Jean-Pierre Keikens, for whom I had
done a speech many years ago for his organization. But things kept me
busy until time to hit the stage, and I just couldn’t make it to VIP.
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| Chuck with Win Butler |
Montreal was
ready for us…crowd was anxious to hear their favorite Stones’ tunes.
“Dead Flowers” got the nod on the “By Request” song. The odd one of the
night was Win….for some reason he put his guitar down on the floor of
the stage after the first chorus….he seemed to fumble a bit with the
words. I don’t know if he couldn’t hear himself or what, but it was just
sort of odd behavior. Then at the end he threw his wireless mic out
into the audience. Someone got a nice free expensive wireless mic out of
the deal! The rest of the set went well, and we chalked up another one.
Boston
6/10-16/13
Left Montreal and winged our way to Boston.We were looking forward to being in one place for a week…well, almost a week. Just half a day short of one, anyway. We were to see lots of friends there, including our daughter Ashley’s boyfriend, Peter Tziros. Peter is an endodontist with a practice in Manchester, NH…which is not that far from Boston. His mom, “Lula”, was coming with him on the first show, and some dentist friends of his on the second.
Left Montreal and winged our way to Boston.We were looking forward to being in one place for a week…well, almost a week. Just half a day short of one, anyway. We were to see lots of friends there, including our daughter Ashley’s boyfriend, Peter Tziros. Peter is an endodontist with a practice in Manchester, NH…which is not that far from Boston. His mom, “Lula”, was coming with him on the first show, and some dentist friends of his on the second.
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| Boston Marathon Memorial |
The afternoon of the 11th, we had lunch with our
pal Bert Holman (who manages the Allman Brothers Band and who was the
tour manager for us many years ago when we had the band “Betts, Hall,
Leavell and Trucks”: Dickey Betts, Jimmy Hall, me and Butch Trucks) and
Larry Cancro and his assistant Beth…both who work for the Boston Red
Sox. We met at Legal Seafood, and had a nice time catching up. Bert
caught me up on the upcoming 40th anniversary release of “Brothers and
Sisters”, which is an extensive look back at that landmark era of the
ABB. It includes some never before released rehearsals, jams and live
recordings from a show we did in Winterland in San Francisco back in ‘73
as well as a remastered version of the original record. Hard to believe
it has been 40 years since we recorded songs like “Rambling Man”,
“Jessica”, “Wasted Words”, “Come And Go Blues” and the others…and nice
to know that they have stood the test of time.
The coming days we were to see lots of other
friends…Jeff and Cathy Tucker from Atlanta; Scott and Debbie Brickner
from Houston; Gordon Beadle and his son Martino (Gordon is a great sax
player that I did a gig with many years ago in the south of France);
Richard Regan and his family from Maine. We would spend a bit of time
with all of them, mostly in the bar of the hotel. Matt Clifford’s
girlfriend, Caryn Tomlinson, who works for Universal Records in Artist
Relations made the trip over from London to see Matt. We all had fun in
the coming days in Bean Town.
On the first show at the TD Garden, our guest
would be Gary Clark, Jr. He has guested with us a few times before, and
we did “Going Down” with him again. As before, he tore it up, doing a
fine job. We did a few songs that we haven’t done much on this
run…including Beast of Burden and Sway. The fans seemed to enjoy it, and
we did, too. Rose Lane and I spent some fun quality time with Peter
Tziros and his mom before the show, in the catering area. She is a
lovely person, and I think that was probably the first time she has been
to an event like this…especially in the back stage area. For the show, I
spied them both in the Tongue Pit. I had thought that Lula wouldn’t
want to make it to the end, and figured it would be great if she stayed
for something like half the show. Much to my surprise, they both were
there until the very end…and Lula was smiling the whole time, which made
me very happy.
The 13th was an off day for us, and I had
interviews lined up. First was an interview for the local Fox TV station
, Fox 25, in the morning. It was supposed to be “live to tape”, and was
to be aired the next day, but as it turned out, it was live…it turned
out fine, and I was told later by one of the Stones’ staff that it
helped to sell some tickets…cool. Then back at the hotel in mid morning I
had an interview via phone with Chris Ryan on WKXL FM and sister stain
WMYF AM. It was short and sweet, and Chris was well prepared. Later in
the day, I did a live interview on WZLX radio…a top rated station that
plays “Classic Rock”. Chuck Knowlin was the personality that interviewed
me, and it was really quite fun. We kidded around together…talked about
The Allman Brothers, Stones, my latest cd (he was kind enough to play
“Wish Me Well” from it during the interview), The Mother Nature Network,
and other fluff. It seemed to go over well as we had a good many phone
calls during the time I was there. After the interview he asked me to
do a segment for his “Chuck TV” program which is played over the Net.
(see: http://wzlx.cbslocal.com/2013/06/14/chucktv-chuck-leveall-of-the-rolling-stones-rewrites-the-theme-song/ )
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| Lisa Fischer with Bernard Fowler backstage |
The second show at TD was on the 14th. and there
was no special guest with us that night…so we threw in “All Down The
Line” and a raucous version of “When The Whip Comes Down”. For the
ballad, we did “Memory Motel”, which was also the “By Request” tune for
the night. As it has a reference to Boston in the lyrics, it went down
well. The rest of the set was well played and there were lots of smiles
going around the stage. A great way to finish up our two shows in a
great city.
Saturday the 15th was off, and the rain had
finally stopped. After the morning routine of Starbucks coffee and a
leisurely wake up, we decided to enjoy the sunshine by going to the
Boston Public Garden and Boston Common, which are right across the
street from the hotel. It was quite crowded, being a Saturday…but we
enjoyed walking through it and “people watching” some…as well as
watching the ducks and swans floating on the large pond there. We made
our way to Charles Street, window shopping and occasionally walking into
a store to check things out. Eventually we made our way around to
Newberry and strolled through it again and finally back to the hotel. We
spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, even taking a short nap. For
dinner, we decided on
Philadelphia
6/15-21/13
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| The Rolling Stones 2013 Philadelphia |
On Sunday we all prepared ourselves for the move
to Philadelphia. The two shows we were to do there had sold out early in
the tour, soon after the dates were announced. So we knew we had lots
of hard core fans coming to see us. Rose Lane and I also had a good many
personal friends coming as well. Lynn Lavery and her pal Bill, Rose
Lane’s childhood friend Casey Adams, John Malloy (a Charlane Plantation
client and friend), Red Nienkirchen (a fellow musician, music teacher
and producer), Ronnie Finestone, Carol Davidson and her son Alex. Scott
and Debbie Brickner and some others. Upon our arrival in the late
afternoon, we settled into our rooms at the Four Seasons and went down
to explore the offerings in the bar. After the soothing effects of a
vodka martini, we went out to eat at an Indian restaurant not too far
from the hotel called the King of Tandoor. It was not bad, but we were
somewhat disappointed that they did not serve drinks there, so we
couldn’t have our usual bit of wine with dinner. But we managed to
survive that bit of hardship and enjoyed the food, then headed back to
close out the day.
The next day was also off for us, but we knew we
would see many of the friends listed above, all of whom were coming in
that day. As they were arriving later, Rose Lane and I spent the first
part of the day roaming around the streets, exploring the shops en route
to a wash and fold place to get our laundry done. Again, no real damage
to our pocketbooks, it was all window shopping. On the way back to the
hotel we took note of Davido’s Restaurant. We had dined at a Davido’s in
Boston and enjoyed it…but didn’t realize it was a chain…and knowing
that we would be having dinner with our friends that evening, we took
the opportunity to stop in and make a reservation.
Back at the hotel we saw Casey Adams checking in
and spoke to him for a bit. Soon after, Lynn, Carol and the others came
in and we greeted everybody, telling them about the reservation for
later. After some down time in the room we met Lynn and her friend Bill
in the bar for a drink before dinner, catching up on what she had been
up to and with what has been going on back in Macon since we’ve been
gone. Soon the others…Casey, Carol and Alex came down and we headed off
to Davido’s.
Dinner was fun and lively, with everyone enjoying
each other’s company and the excellent food. It’s great to be able to
share these good times with friends that we haven’t seen in a while, and
to be able to have them enjoy the “Stones Experience”. All were primed
for the show the next night.
For our first show in Philly, the guest would be
Brad Paisley.
A former guitar tech of ours, Dave Rouze, who had worked
with us for several tours had gone to work for Brad a few years ago.
Brad apparently liked Dave so much that he gave him a permanent position
and he had moved to Nashville and has been there ever since. Dave is a
fantastic guy, and we have all missed him…but of course we are happy for
him with his gig with Paisley…and we were all very happy to see him at
sound check. In the mix for our “By Request”, I had put up “Dead
Flowers”, and it had won the position. That was the perfect song to do
with Brad, so we wound up combining his guest spot
Brad nailed “Dead Flowers” in rehearsal and we
touched on a couple of other tunes, then broke from the stage to go back
to our dressing rooms.
The Philly crowd was amazing…really a high energy
night, both from band and audience. We had a nice bit of social time
afterwards in the hotel bar…spending time with all our friends. I met a
nice young fellow named Mitch Hinkle. He seemed to be in his early 20’s
and introduced himself to me, saying that he is a piano player from the
Atlanta area. We had a nice chat, and I could tell from our conversation
that he was serious about his playing…I gave him the names of some
other Atlanta musicians and suggested that he contact them to try and
put together some jams. Always nice to find young folks that want to get
into music and that have the passion for it. I sent him one of my CDs
to his home address…hope he gets some good things going for himself.
The next
night there was a fun tour party put on by the fine AEG folks. It was in
a spot in “Cuba Town” called Cubalebre. They had rented out the whole
place just for the band and crew. There was a tight Cuban band playing,
some dancers that put on some exhibitions and good food. Nice to have
the time with everyone together, and kudos to AEG for putting it on.
Most of our friends had left for home, so it was just me and Rosie….we
stayed for a bit, enjoying the company of our “Stones Family”, then
discretely left to go have dinner. We had spotted a seafood restaurant
in Rittenhouse Square called Devon Seafood Grill that looked good…so we
popped in there to try it out. It must have been somewhat of an off
night for them….the service was pretty good, but the food was slow to
come, and the fish was pretty dry. To their credit, when it was apparent
we didn’t eat much of it and they asked why….we gave them a straight
answer and they only charged us for one of the dishes instead of both.
Hey…anyone can have an off day, and they were honorable about it.
No show on
the 20th, and after a trip to the gym, we fought the boredom by once
again exploring the streets of Philadelphia near us. Walked around South
Broad, 15th, 16th and 17th streets, Panama, Pine, Lombard and Locust,
and some others in the neighborhood. We did better for dinner than we
did the night before, having a nice steak dinner at a place called
Butcher and Singer. Excellent food and service…good wine list. It is
apparently something of an institution in Philly…with good reason!
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| Rose Lane and Chuck's 40th Anniversary!coming up... |
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