Living in the Electric City

I am sorry it has been 5 days since my last entry. I have finally accepted my new way of life and therefore less eager to analyze it. Although, as I sit here trying to recount the last week on the road I do find it very difficult to place events with their proper place and time. For that reason, I am going to try harder to write daily even if there isn't much to tell.

The cover of the
Coopers Seafood menu

Going back to Wednesday, June 28th Evan played in Scranton, PA at the Toyota Pavilion. I was excited to spend the night in Scranton because my favorite television show, "The Office" is based there. To satisfy the geek in me, we got a hotel and made plans to eat at Cooper's Seafood, a restaurant filmed in the television show and talked about in several episodes, after the show. We brought "The Office" DVDs on the road with us (I am a bit obsessed with the show, alright!) and agreed to watch all the episodes that featured the restaurant that night before bed.

Pre-approved by Evan to represent his 'diva day' 

Before we got to the venue, Evan was having one of his 'diva days', as I call them. These are days when Evan's ego is deflated so he tries to pump himself back up which sounds reasonable enough except it usually means he needs to remove himself from any outside responsibilities and focus on himself. I know he doesn't mean to pass the burdens of life onto me but it is these days that I must pick up the slack. Therefore, I was doing most of the driving and navigating.

He had been feeling particularly bad about his showmanship at the last few shows so to rectify this Evan decided to practice more often. He also wanted to learn more about his new on stage partner, Vivian Campbell who has played every show with Evan since the first collaboration in Virginia Beach. As I drove to Scranton, PA Evan laid among the backseat pillows and watched YouTube videos, strummed his guitar with ferocity and occasionally fished for a compliment.

Vivian and Evan playing
at Toyota Pavilion, PA

The Toyota Pavilion was set in a ski resort which made it nice that we would be surrounded by woods on the top of a mountain, it gave the night a different feel. For the set, Evan opened with "Woodpecker" then welcomed Vivian onto the stage and played the Bill Withers cover and finished his set with "Latitude". With the collaboration Evan only has time to play 3 songs instead of 4 as he used to.

That night after Evan's portion of the concert, I was introduced to the Def Leppard fan,Theresa. She told me that she was following the tour for 12 shows. Evan had met Theresa in NYC when she attended one of his Headless Horsemen shows at Arlene's Grocery. She said she wanted to get a sneak preview of the opening act for the summer tour. After sharing stories of the road with a fellow 'roadie' who could sympathize with us Evan and I headed out for our night in Scranton.

I was so gitty, I am sure Evan couldn't stand it! I couldn't stop wiggling in the car and constantly snapping pictures out the open car window. "LOOK! There is the electric city sign from that episode in The Office when . . . " or "OH oh oh oh! Over there, it's the bar they used to go to after work!", I was enjoying myself. When we got to Coopers I ordered 1.5 pounds of sweet meat snow crab legs and lost my table manners while devouring them. To top off the evening, we watched the Office episodes featuring the Coopers restaurant as I planned. It was a nice night and one of my favorite nights so far on the road.