I’m in the back of the box truck, updating documents en route to what is going to be a crazy night at The Engine Room in Tallahassee, FL. Tallahassee always gets down...hard! We’re coming from Atlanta, GA where we just sold out Smith’s Olde Bar after only our second play in the room. With 95 presales and a strong buzz about the show, we were confident about the attendance, but when the show sold out 20 minutes into Zach’s first set, we were all smiles as 338 stuffed into the 300 person capacity room for a fun ass Friday night.
With that being said, we’re back in our normal routine as a national headliner, heading into Florida for a week’s worth of shows before we start heading West for the rest of the month of March. When I said back to our normal routine of national headliner, I’m referring to us coming off our recent 4 gig stint as support act for Chicago-based Umphrey’s McGee. My two favorite live bands touring today...ZD and UM. I got a late start on the UM train in comparison to others, but have been going hard with them since 2006. I have been able to see them all over the US and in several different countries, including Jamaica and Amsterdam. I have been able to lock into one of the most passionate, dedicated fan bases I have come across. From seeing show after show, to paying attention to press releases, new show ideas, and trolling The Bort (UM forum) for many years, I have been able to study the UM model. I haven’t copied it by any means, but remember the good things, noted the bad (very few), and used the UM model for everything I do on Zach Deputy tour.
Then in late November, we were in a routing meeting with management, and I got the confirmation we would be supporting UM for 4 shows in the Southeast in February. As pumped up as I was, I’ve changed from the music rat that drools over everything to chipping away at the day by day tasks. I’m not able to get excited anymore until I’m IN the moment. Then it’ll kick me in the face, and I’ll stand there with my arms crossed, doing whatever it is that I’m doing, rocking the biggest smile humanly possible. Either way we were all still very excited to be supporting such a great band as my production manager and I were looking forward to seeing the inner workings of everything on the production side of things.
We haven’t opened for another band in almost a year and a half, so being in the support role was a huge juxtaposition for us all, yet the trade off was significantly larger crowds and AMAZING rooms. I had heard some great things about each of the rooms we were going to be playing (Music Farm, The Orange Peel, The Fillmore and The National), but never been to any of them. The Music Farm in Charleston, SC was our first stop and was a decent start. Both shows were good, but probably my least of the run. We spent the first day trying to wrap our heads around exactly how we fit in this puzzle, as we were trying to do our thing, but at the same time realize that this wasn’t our show and try to stay out of the way as much as possible.
Next up was The Orange Peel in Asheville, NC. A larger venue than The Music Farm, The Peel had enough room for all our gear (we had to store our gear outside at The Music Farm) as well as multiple greens rooms for the bands. The green rooms are on opposite sides of the venue; tied together by a corridor lined with everything UM production. This was nice to see. Loads of pictures taken, check. Robbie, UM’s stage manager has his production station set up along this corridor. He’s got space for his laptop, storage space for gaff tape, a clock, the night’s setlist and the daily production schedule at his disposal. Tech stations and guitar racks were set up outside the greens rooms for fine tuning of anything that needed repair. Don, UM’s tour manager, is around somewhere running the tightest ship I’ve seen. Very polite and to the point, Don gets shit done! He is a great example of a top of the line TM, and someone I watched very carefully during my time on the road. I don’t mean for that to sound stalker style, I was busy doing my thing, but I believe that everything has been done before and that we should all pay attention/learn from the best.
After two shows, we all went our separate ways, only to reconvene a day later in Charlotte, NC at The Fillmore. These next two shows were my favorite ZD shows. The crowds were big and the response was great. UM was nice enough to extend our 45 minute sets to 60 minutes, and we even got to see some collaboration.
Joel Cummins, Umphrey’s keyboard world extraordinaire sat in on
Scrambled Eggs and
Lincoln Continental to end Zach’s set at The Fillmore. Zach then sang lead vocals on
Let’s Get It On in the encore slot for UM’s set. What a night! After the show we all hung out in the green room for a bit, enjoying one another's company as we’d all started to fall into a groove with each other after 3 shows.
The last show of our 4 night run brought us to The National in Richmond, VA. What an unbelievably gorgeous room! An old theater, this revamped venue has unobstructed sight lines, great sound, and some of the best backstage perks one could ask for. Separate dressing rooms, green rooms, rec rooms and even a sauna. There aren’t many opportunities at a show to find yourself with enough down time to have full blown conversation, but from our experiences on the road with Umphrey’s McGee for 4 shows, we only have great things to say. Every single band and crew member were extremely polite, accommodating and fun to work with. We didn’t get to see them load in every day as they get to the venue at noon after driving through the night from the previous venue, but we do see how much gear they move, and we love it! It’s amazing what a tour bus, a tractor trailer and 12 guys can do. The amount of lights alone that are brought into the venue is mind blowing, but so is the quality of work that Jefferson Waful is producing.
Just to wrap it up, I need to move away from production and talk about some stand out versions and the fan base. After all the conversations I got to have with the UM team, after all the insight I was afforded, and after getting all my work done for the last night of our run, I finally let loose and went out and danced. I climbed to the very back row of the venue, dead center with one of my best friends, Jeremy Cobb, and handful of his friends. Jeremy hit up 3 of the 4 shows; we both had a bunch of friends that hit up the first couple shows in Charleston and Asheville. The first few shows had some stellar versions of songs, but standouts for me were
Get In The Van and
Great American from The Music Farm; the entire first set of The Orange Peel show (that was seriously fuckkkkkked up; I couldn’t help but laugh at how amazing that was);
Rocker Pt. II,
Wappy Sprayberry, and a
Ringo sandwich with
Bulls On Parade thrown in there from The Fillmore; and lastly,
Band On The Run and
Smell The Mitten from The National. I’ll never forget that last night at The National, as Jeremy tried getting me to rage all week long.
Smell The Mitten hit hard and we were on cloud 9 as the thick groove hit every square inch of the venue. Jeremy said something along the lines of, “Oh yeah, Giggey’s dream...in the back getting funky to
Mitten!” Haha, music family knows each other! That’s my dream...in the back of a venue, with no talkers and all the space in the world, getting funky as shit with some of the greatest people I know!
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