Last night we worked with Al Jardine of the Beach Boys. A good day at work, mostly because his crew and band were easy to work with. That is always the difference in this business. I have done shows here and there with the Beach Boys since the mid 1980’s when they showed up with John Stamos drumming for them at the Chuck Landis Country Club in Reseda, California, where I worked as the lighting director with my partner Tom Hamilton. After that I did gigs with them on a ski resort ( I think it was in Big Bear) and at the Universal Hilton , then here at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts on quite a few occasions. Al also showed up at at least one show for Wilson Phillips we did too.
He was sitting stage left in the wings struggling to put his feet up on a rolling cart, so I offered to get him an apple box, to which he declined. But this started a conversation. I asked if he still lived up in central California. He lives in the Big Sur area. I told him that I had taken a drive up highway 1 many years ago before the road closed, but the next time I took that drive I discovered the road was washed out when I came to it’s end and had to drive a small road back to the 101. He reminded me that it was Naciamento road, which joins the 101 at fort Hunter Liggett. Exactly as I then remembered. He said that although it’s not to bad if you’re on vacation – as the drive is still nice, but as a resident, the two plus hours drive is tough for residents to get into the city in both directions, north and south. “It’s not always as easy as one thinks living in paradise,” he said. I told him as I was keeping an eye on real estate on the big island in Hawaii, and I always thought about that when looking for houses because of floods and lava. One must choose wisely. And, also the story of when I lived in the hills here in LA that a tree crushed my house and my car. I lost most everything. Paradise at work.
We talked about travel, as I want to go to Thailand in a couple of years when I retire. I was surprised that he had never been there on any tours. He said, ” I made it as far as Singapore, but never Thailand.” So I said, ” I guess you still have things to do and places to visit in your life!”
We talked about New Zealand and Australia, where he said they had a lot of fans, Australia in particular, and he loved to visit. But then I needed to go back to work, as there was a small audio problem on stage, and he had to go back out to play for sound check.
I had received a graphic from the company which they wanted to display on screen the day before the show, but it was square and didn’t fill the 16×9 screen so I did a bit of work to fill it out for them. I displayed it for Al on the screen, and he liked it, so we decided to use it for the show. I’m glad about that, and will give it to them to take on the road. I always love when I get a chance to talk with the performers, especially when I have worked with them over the years, like Al. Also “Weird Al” Yankovic showed up at the end of the evening and I got to meet him. which was cool! So another good evening at work.
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