If you haven’t heard already via our Social media, Our next adventure takes us on the road with Green Day in support of their “Saviors” Tour for about two weeks (and three stops), to get as much information as we can to see what it takes to put on a touring act of this magnitude. The overall end product is going to be an hour or so long documentary coming to our YouTube channel (@ChewingontheWire) on 9/13/24! but, we also opted to break it down a little stop-by-stop & city-by-city on here pictorially for y’all!
CINCINNATI, OH – Today, we’re going to start inside the venue. above is a picture taken right before gates open for the August 22nd show at Great American Ballpark (Home of the Cincinnati Reds). A couple things to notice, include the use of the video boards during downtime (no acts on stage) – it may not be pictured (because it didn’t look as aesthetically badass), but the second slide shown after the one you currently see on the scoreboard, was an updated stadium map, helping to usher guests to the new labeled sections that aren’t normally there during the original intended use of the facilities, such as field seating and updated ADA accessible seats. Also, if you can zoom in enough, each row of foldout seats was individually zip-tied together, to keep them in line and used in an orderly fashion……as well as on the ground, and not thrown and/or stolen for any reason (you can use your imagination here).
Above is the spotlights used to single out band members or other aspects of the show (don’t wanna give everything away right off the bat 
), as well as a picture taken of the stage from right below their platform – to further illustrate the amount of Lumens these lights have to be in order to do their jobs.
Here, we have a closer look at the on-field trusses holding large speakers to project the sound happening on the stage to the stadium seats further away. A system I’ve never held any complaints about and have always felt like gave me a seamless experience, but also the bane of the existence of some of the “couch sound professionals”Couch Sound Guys” in the crowd ( “Couch sound guys” is my term for the music fan version of the “Couch Coach” or “Recliner Manager” terms used when it comes to sports fans who have notably no experience in game management, but feel the need to message their favorite team on what they believe the coach did wrong that game)
The view of the finished product from the bowels of the stadium as The Smashing Pumpkins take the stage
OF COURSE I had to share some fun action shots of the show! 
– ALSO, the last photo is another example of what the spotlights have to light up. They had a couple different pieces of their “dookie” and ” American Idiot” album covers come to life – some in very interactive ways – such as the dookie plane dropping inflatable “dookie” bombs (that’s what they said on them) over the crowd as keepsakes from the show!
Post-show – we have the stadium crew cutting, folding, and loading all the fold out seats on the field onto rolling carts so they can start to remove everything on the field as the performers move out. It can take at least 12 hours to set up/tare down the show, and now they have to manicure the field to MLB standards after the show is gone – they only have four days till the hometown Reds come back to play another game!
Also pictured, you can see crew members lowering the field speakers off the trusses and taking them apart to be packed up and rolled back onto the truck!
We hope you enjoyed our first installment of “What it Takes” – “Saviors” Tour Style! more behind the scenes to come soon! see Y’all at our next stop with the tour in Pittsburgh, PA!
in the meantime, enjoy this fun picture of Billie Joe with a Trump mask that says “Idiot” on the forehead! (in reference to the September 2004 Irving Plaza show, where he wore a Bush mask with “Idiot” written on the forehead)
Chewing on the Wire Media 
Leave a comment