Gig 20030411 Journal

Source: Shihad.com (circa 03)

Date Published: Unsure

Who: Shihad.

Where: Hard Rock Live 	 Orlando, FL, USA

When: 11 April 2003

Reviewed by: Shihad (Jon Toogood) & (Phil Knight)

Was a good day today. spent it running around the Universal City theme park (where the Hard Rock Live venue is) taking photos of our name in lights on the marquee out front and pretending to be at Disneyland. Quckily discovered that New Zealand had been left off the huge Universal logo globe that greets you at the front gates so when I got back to the gig I pretended to be deeply mortified in front of all the American bands on tour with us which was good for a laugh (personally, I think the longer we keep NZ a secret the better). The Hard Rock must have some serious money to burn as the venue is absolutely beautiful and MASSIVE. our dressing room is the size of some of the gigs we played in Texas, has real gold and platinum records all over the walls and a signed Angus poster in the toilet. I'm looking forward to doing the Arena Rock Thing all day. they've also got a huge collection of Rock'n'Roll memorabilia spread around the building which included the 'Magical Mystery Tour' bus and John Lennon's couch from his NY apartment (which I got Karl to take a photo of me on - oh yeah.) the show rrrocks. Tom gets his first huge drum riser since the Big Day Out and the rest of us get to run around a stage that's almost as big as a soccer field so we're all happy. completely fucked afterwards. have a bruise the size of an egg coming up on my shin from who knows where but feel pretty good about life. Revolution Smile rocked. James from Trust Co. had his Birthday today and got pummeled by all sorts of shit at the end of their show. he's a good lad. watched 'Donnie Darko" on the bus. I like scary movies when they're different.

-Jon.X

Will here we are in the home of the mickey mouse club. Jon made a good start to the day by telling the hotel manager to "Eat me", when he wouldn't let him make one more local phone call (because we were late getting out of our room and the phone bill had already been finalized). The manager and security guard then came up to our room and told him "If you don't get out in 5 minutes I'm calling the police. And I expect to be spoken to the same way I speak to my customers". The show was here at the Hard Rock Cafe in the Universal Studios park, so it is all very reminiscent of the Disneyland House of Blues show. The security is pretty tight here and as I was walking out the back gate to go to the gas station to get my happy snacks, the security guard asked me "Could you please walk on the sidewalk, Sir!), which was a bit anal. There are a few creepy things around here, like fucked up old broken bumper cars off the rides and an old worn out shark head from the Jaws ride. I pissed off our tour manager today. When Kylie Minogue was on mtv, I was screaming "Kylie" in a high pitched australian voice, and woke him up in his bunk. He wasn't impressed. We played a cool set tonight and the stage was even bigger than the Big Day Out stage. So there was lots of running around. Turning new people on to band is always the best part of day.

(Phil)