So we drove a few hours after the show in Pennsylvania and arrived in New York City around 2am and checked into the historic Algonquin hotel. We dropped off our stuff in the room and since this is the city that never sleeps, we headed out. We didn’t really think that through though, we forgot it was 21º outside and after the wind chill, it felt like 7º. But that didn’t stop us, we walked a couple blocks and got ourselves some NY hot dogs from a cart and headed into Times Square.
Times Square at 2am, pretty empty.
So we stopped by the 24 hour Starbucks and grabbed a hot drink and got out of the cold for a minute before continuing on and looking for food. The only thing we could find within walking distance that was open was, of course, McDonald’s. So we stopped in and it was pretty bizarre. I didn’t get any pictures, but it was as if this McDonald’s was designed to be on MTV. There were TV’s all along the walls playing music videos with stools right in front of them, it was strange. Anyway, after the quick bite, we braved the cold again and headed back to the hotel to crash for a few hours.
Our small hotel room at the Algonquin.
Me and Eman on the Forever 21 screen in Times Square.
After getting a couple hours of sleep, we woke up around 10am and went back out. We found lunch at a nearby diner that was packed with people and for good reason. We then stopped by the Radio Shack across the street and then wandered some more around Times Square before heading over to the theater to load in and sound check. This crew was fantastic, very helpful and they did their job well. After sound check me and Eman decided to go use the Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse gift card that his brother gave him (Thanks so much, Ebiut!) and we excitedly walked the 6 blocks required to do so. Eman got a Cowboy Ribeye and I got the Filet, and it was amazing, by far the best meal of the tour, I was full about halfway through the steak but still couldn’t manage to stop eating.
Our dinner, not a very good picture of an INCREDIBLE steak.
We then returned to the show with plenty of time and got changed and ready to play. The show went well, which was good considering all the important people that were there: lots of people from the Children’s Miracle Network and Remax, as well as lots of bigwigs from Universal and AEG Live, not to mention I had to play ‘Piano Man’ in front of Billy Joel’s keyboard player. But all went well and we had fun.
The sign outside the Best Buy Theater.
After the show, we quickly loaded up and headed straight out of town. It was a quick 22 hours in NYC, but I loved them all and can’t wait until I get to go back again!
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We then drove all night on the way to Raleigh, North Carolina. We stopped for a wonderful breakfast along the way at a Cracker Barrel, no idea what city it was in, I think it was in Virginia, then kept on moving. We got into Raleigh around noon and checked into the hotel and fell back asleep for a while. Later in the evening we decided to go walk around and found that there isn’t much to do in Raleigh. Let me correct myself, there is nothing to do in Raleigh. We managed to find a Mexican restaurant a few blocks from the hotel and had ourselves our first Mexican food on the tour and it was pretty decent. We then hit up Starbucks and returned to the hotel to sleep.
Now this morning, we woke up and headed to the Duke Hospital for Ethan to make an appearance and play a few songs in the children’s wing.
Ethan performing in the hospital.
After finishing there, we went to the venue to setup and sound check. This was the quickest setup we’ve had all tour, then it was time for the piano tuner to go to work so we had a lunch break. We headed to Jimmy John’s Subs for some very mediocre sandwiches then wandered back over for a 20 minutes sound check which left us with plenty of time to see all the sights and experience everything that downtown Raleigh has to offer. And when those 5 minutes were over, we went to Starbuck’s to kill the first of the 4 hours we had before the show.
Ethan and the band in front of the venue.
We had a delicious Hawaiian pizza from ZPizza for dinner and walked back to the venue and got ready. The show tonight was interesting, Ethan didn’t get dinner and hadn’t gotten much rest the last couple days, so he was a little out of it, but still managed to put on a great show and entertain the audience.
After packing up, we are now on the road to Atlanta, which I’m hoping is better than Raleigh, which shouldn’t be hard. Man, I don’t like Raleigh.
