New York (September 5, 2025)—Labor Day weekend held a mixed bag of emotions for me—it always does and I imagine that’s the case for anyone who works freelance in live entertainment. It usually marks the end of the busiest season of the year, and, as a freelancer, I tend to view it from two vantage points, past and future: First, I’m relieved that I’ve survived another summer; and second, I look at the Fall calendar, hopeful that I can fill the last few months of the year with a significant amount of work.
Looking back at this year, I’m more relieved than usual. Starting back in March, I was on an insane tear of a schedule that literally gave me nightmares as it approached. There was a lot of anxiety in the weeks leading up, mostly in the way of, “How the heck am I going to pull this off?” And indeed, as I spiraled toward the end of July, it was insanity.
It started in late March when I had a few dates with Blue Öyster Cult. Two days later, I started the first leg of the Jon Anderson & The Band Geeks 2025 “Yes Epics, Classics & More” tour. That ended in the second week of May with a “Blue Öyster Cult sandwich:” JA & The Band Geeks on 5/16 in Westbury, N.Y., BÖC show on 5/17 in Oxford, Ala. (just try and get there easily…), and another date with JA & The Band Geeks on 5/18 in Carteret, N.J. (ditto).
Mix Live Blog: This Is Progress?
Just for extra fun and stress, Delta sent me a text literally five minutes before I started the JA&BG show on 5/17 saying that our flight the next morning would be delayed, causing us (of course) to miss our connection. Well, at least we knew about it in advance (details another time).
A few days later, I left for the U.K. to start Blue Öyster Cult’s Spring U.K./Euro tour. We don’t name BÖC tours anymore; we simply call it being “On Tour Forever.” After that three-and-a-half week run, I flew back to Washington, D.C., to start the second leg of the “Yes Epics, Classics, & More” tour. If you’re having trouble keeping track, you can surmise that on more than one occasion my eyeballs were spinning in opposite directions.
If that weren’t busy enough, the last two weeks of the JA&BG tour overlapped with the first two weeks of BÖC’s summer jaunt, so I bounced between bands while managing not to miss any dates. When I arrived in St. Louis on July 13 for the end-of-tour “Yes Epics, Classics & More” show, I immediately apologized to the house crew for what I was fairly certain would become evident later in the day—that, after having been up for three straight days with barely more than a few airplane naps, I had no brain cells remaining and nothing in the tank.
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Wish I could say that I laid in bed for a few days starting July 15, but no such luck. There’s simply too much to be done in my personal and professional life, especially after being on the road so much (though it has slowed down a bit as I write this).
Typically, when I look at the Fall calendar, I’m able to breathe a sigh of relief, but, with the Fall Semester at Mercy College having just started this past Wednesday, and close to 20 more BOC dates to go before the end of the year…I’ll have to wait for the year-end holiday break to get some serious relief.
Thank God I love what I do!
