MGM Grand Hotel

5/10/13

After settling into the MGM Grand hotel (admittedly not our favorite place in the world), Rose Lane and I decided to walk about the complex just for something to do. We ran into our friend Steve Bing, who was there to come to the gig. Rosie and I had tried to get a table at the famous Crofts Steak House for that evening, but we were told that we couldn’t get a table until late, around 9:45 or so, and we had decided to make a reservation at the Japanese Sushi place ?? for 8pm instead. When I told this to Steve, he said…“What time do you want to go to Crofts”…I told him we had tried for 8, but they couldn’t accommodate us…and he said “Hold on…” and got on the phone. Within a few minutes I get a call from Steve’s office saying we were confirmed for 8pm….whoa, guess it is all in who one knows! Thanks, Steve!

Rosie and I roamed around the MGM stores for a while…we are not gamblers, so we weren’t interested in those kinds of activities…and mainly window shipped for an hour or so before going back to the room where our luggage awaited us to deal with. As we were only going to be there for a couple of days, we didn’t want to unpack everything…and just opened up what we needed, keeping the bags as out of the way as possible.

I killed some time doing emails and computer stuff and we watched a bit of tv until it was time to go to dinner. They had arranged a great table for us…a very spacious and comfortable booth that had a nice private element to it. Croft’s offers some very special selective beef for their steaks. In addition to the usual high quality Angus beef, they have American and Japanese Wagyu (Kobe) beef. Rosie and I decided to splurge on the American Wagyu…which goes for just over $100 per steak…an amount we hardly ever spend on dinner…but less than the Japanese Wagyu that goes for well over $200 per steak.

It was a fantastic meal….and while we would never make a habit of indulging that much, it made for a fine dinner and memorable experience.

As we were finishing up, our friend Mickey Raphael and his girlfriend Brenda came in and made their way over to our table to say hello. I knew he was coming and had arranged passes for him. It was great to see him and to meet Brenda. They were guests of Steve Bing’s and were just getting there to meet Steve’s party. Rosie and I finished up and went to the table where Bing and friends were to say hey…their party included Mickey and Brenda, Matt Clifford, Mick, Steve and some others. We chatted for a minute or two with them and then made our way out, quite satisfied. Back in the room we chilled out with a couple of glasses of wine and a little tv before turning in.

5/11/13

Staying a the MGM meant that we just had to walk down to the arena for the show…so we killed time in our room drinking coffee and doing email and other tasks. Rose Lane and I love our morning coffee…but these hotels charge an arm and a leg for a pot….I’d say an average of $25-30. So we’ve learned to buy us a coffee maker at the beginning of the tour and pack it in our bags, taking it with us. I had bought a $25 unit that works just fine…and when you calculate what one would spend over the course of a tour just to have our daily java fix….it would come to something like $2,000. So we make our own coffee…get the brands we like and have it when we like it…which helps our comfort level as well as our pocketbook! 

About 1pm I had an interview to do in our room with Pulitzer prize winning journalist, Tom Knudson. Tom has written some things on me before, and focuses quite a lot on environmental subject matter. He and his wife, Eileen, came up to the room where we talked, doing the interview and taking some photos. It was good to reunite with him…he loves rock ‘n roll music and is a superb writer.

We walked down to the arena around 2 to settle in. Tonight’s guest would be Katy Perry….and she had requested to do “Beast of Burden”….which was cool as we have not done it on the tour yet. Ironically and to our favor, it was also the choice of the fans for the “By Request” part of the show where we give fans 5 songs to vote for in that slot. That helped me to write up a nice set list. I went to Mick’s dressing room around 4 to do a run through with him and Katy. She had a cold and warned us to give her enough space not to pass it on to us…which was thoughtful of her. She was very professional and had done her homework on the song, so the run through was smooth. She graciously agreed to take a photo of me with her, which was much appreciated. Then it was on to the stage for the sound check. We went over a few tunes, eventually getting to her with “Beast….”. We ran through it twice, and she was comfortable, so we moved on to the rest of the check, all happy and ready.

I finalized the set list with Mick and went for a bite to eat in catering…then made my way to VIP to see some guests. Tonight it would be John Lyndon…our good friend from Athens, Ga and the brother of our loyal and loved friend and employee at Charlane, Skoots Lyndon. John had a few friends with him that we met and said hello to. Also in VIP was Tom Knudson and his wife Eileen, and my friend Don Whyte and several of his friends. Don has hunted with us at Charlane and was in charge of a huge environmentally friendly development near Salt Lake City that I wrote about in my book “Growing A Better America” called the Daylight Community in South Jordan, Utah on some land that was owned by the Rio Tinto company. It is a fantastic project where some old mining lands were converted into a sustainable, environmentally sensitive community (see: http://www.daybreakutah.com). I made the rounds, chatting to all of them and taking some pictures. 

Gig time came and all came off without any hitches. The good news about the MGM arena is that it is a really good room for sound, and therefore makes for a pleasant experience for us on stage. We could all hear better than we have so far on the tour. Katy Perry did very well…and interacted nicely with Mick. We all left the stage feeling great about it.

5/12/13

Sunday  the 13th was Mother’s Day. Rose Lane and I phoned her mom, our sister-in-law, Carol White and our daughter, Amy to wish them a happy MD. Rosie’s mom had had a fall recently, injuring her femur that required an operation to put a pin in place to get it to heal properly. She’s done well considering her 90 year age, and she sounded great. Carol and Amy sounded great as well, and our grandsons Miles and Rocco talked to us briefly…it was good to catch up a bit with home. Later in the day our daughter Ashley called Rose Lane to pass on good wishes. After the calls,  it didn’t take us long to zip up our bags and get them ready for the luggage pickup. Then we went down for lunch at Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant which was quite good….and had enough time on our hands to take a taxi to The Forum near Ceasar’s Palace to peek in some shops. I wound up buying a tee shirt and jacket in the Guess shop and a Lacie hard drive to back up my computer with. Rosie made some minor purchases and we headed back to the hotel to get ready to fly back to LA.

We boarded the plane about 3pm and lifted off just after 4….landing back at the Oakland airport by 5. On the bus on the way to the Four Seasons, my phone lit up…I had a look at it, and it was John Mayer calling me. I didn’t want to answer with all the folks in the bus with me, so I decided I would wait and call him back when we got to the hotel. But then the phone lit up again with a text from him saying that he was in the studio and had a song he wanted me to play on the next day. I texted back that I’d call him shortly to discuss. When we got settled in the hotel I rang him and we arranged for me to do a session at Village Recording Studios the next day…which thrilled me no end. He had told me that if I wanted to come in that evening, they would be working fairly late…but I had promised to take Rose Lane out to dinner for Mother’s Day and opted for working with him the next day, Monday. 

Rosie and I walked to Ill Cielo for dinner…and were well taken care of there as usual…going there is like going to a good friend’s house for dinner. That wound up the day and we relaxed in the room until bedtime.

5/13/13

Did the workout thing and the pool thing for a while (so nice to be able to have a little time for that!) and had worked it out with John to get to the studio at 3:30. Rosie and I had some lunch at the patio restaurant again before I headed out. Got to Village Recorders. I arrived on time and had a great reunion in the side room of Studio D with the “Mayer Family”….his tech Rene; personal assistant Missy; equipment manager Chris Gott; Chad Franscoviak, his engineer; and of course Sean Hurley, bass, and Aaron Sterling, drums. It was a wonderful thing to see them all and catch up on their lives. John eventually came out of the studio into the room we were hanging in and it was great to see his six foot four frame and his smiling face underneath his now familiar Stetson hat. His manager, Michael McDonald, came in in short order, and it was really good to see him, too.

After some more pleasantries we went into the studio to hear a new song he had written and recorded the track for called “Waiting on the Day”. I took to it straight away and did some piano, Wurly and B-3 on it. I can’t say enough about how great it felt to work with him again…and the tune was another beautiful Mayer piece. The head of Columbia Records, Ashley Newton, arrived after we had work on the track and John played him that song and two others, both of which seemed to impress him. He made some very positive comments and was visibly excited about this new project…and from what I could gather, they want to finish it up fairly soon and get it out in the summer. 

For the rest of the evening we just messed around listening to some other stuff and had a couple of jams that I suppose could potentially turn into songs. John likes to work that way…just get out into the room and start a groove…then fool around with some changes and blurt out some lyrics until there is a form…then later flesh it out into a finished song. He’s quite amazing that way. 

The time passed quickly and before I knew it, it was midnight….it was enough work for the day and we all headed home. I hit the sack a bit tired, but very happy.