00:00I've never once opened the cheese tray.
00:02If you were here with me, you would be welcome to it.
00:05I think at one point we were going to be on the house,
00:07which is probably why they made it so it weighs 20,000 pounds.
00:17Hi, it's Brian Bell from Weezer.
00:18It's Scott.
00:19And Patrick from Weezer.
00:20Come with us on our tour in Billboard All Access.
00:34We got together and had Zoom calls and looked at pictures.
00:37I was just thinking of this the other day
00:39because we looked at some other sets.
00:41They were so different.
00:43It was such a different vibe.
00:44And I was like, so glad we didn't do that
00:46because this turned out to be very fun and open and inclusive.
00:49It kind of puts us right in the mix with the audience.
00:51The gathering tour was created.
00:54The creative of the creation of being creative
00:57was a joint effort between all four members.
01:00It started with a title of the tour that was The Gathering
01:04that was possibly going to be the name of the record
01:06when we were in the studio making what is now known as the Gold Album.
01:10We had to come up with a backstory.
01:12Who's gathering?
01:13Why are we gathering?
01:14Our in-house director, Brendan Walters,
01:18who came up with this idea of this kid, Nicholas,
01:20who summons us to play at The Gathering
01:23by drawing the symbols that we came up with on a piece of paper
01:27and they enchant us with golden eyes
01:31and everybody else who comes to see us
01:33and we decide to play a house party
01:36at the house where the band first originated
01:39and the garage of In The Garage is that garage.
01:43It's known as the Amherst House.
01:45I got my hash pipe
01:48I got my hash pipe
01:51I mean, you could die with, I mean, right there.
01:55That's flames that come out and will roast you.
01:58It's over the top.
01:59That's a real house.
02:01It's like better than half the houses in L.A., I think.
02:03It costs more than my first house, so that's great.
02:06Every night, it really stokes me up to watch that video
02:09and watch that kid, Nicholas,
02:11and I feel like I'm watching E.T. for the first time.
02:14It's done so well.
02:16Steven Spielberg would be proud.
02:24My name is Carl Cook.
02:26On this tour, I run the VIP tour
02:29showing people the secrets of the band's instruments and such,
02:33a little backstage action.
02:35I take them up to the VIP lounge.
02:37As part of the lounge, I have a sort of museum
02:39of historical Weezer stuff, and I show them all that.
02:52Yeah, it's great seeing some of the same faces.
02:55They're surrounded by so many new, super enthusiastic faces
02:58that it's kind of wild.
03:00It seemed like for a while,
03:01we'd kind of see the same 20 or 30 people just be chilling.
03:04Now, it's like these 20, 30 people,
03:06but there's a bunch of other people
03:07pushing them out of the way
03:08and getting in on the action.
03:09So it's been an exciting tour, really.
03:11It's definitely a fresh batch of people.
03:13It's like I imagine it's like a high school reunion.
03:16Yeah, it's a similar feeling.
03:22What is a typical day on the road?
03:24It starts by being on the road.
03:27It doesn't matter which road
03:28because you just played a show,
03:30and then by the time you're done,
03:32it's basically beddy-bye time for me.
03:35Other guys, they stay up later and they eat dinner.
03:38We're talking about a typical day on tour,
03:40staggering out of the bus,
03:41following arrows on the ground,
03:42making our way to our dressing room
03:44as it's coming together,
03:45and we grab some breakfast.
03:47I like to make my own coffee in the morning
03:48because I know it's going to be right.
03:49One of the hardest things to do
03:51is remember what your room number is the next morning.
03:55Sometimes you leave your room.
03:57And then you're like, wait a second,
03:58was it on the 19th floor?
03:59Was it the 16th floor?
04:00Was it 1602?
04:00That was last night.
04:01Wait a second.
04:01Maybe it was 1408.
04:02Wait, no, that was the address I grew up on.
04:04We'll hang out, we'll sort things out,
04:06try to go out, have an adventure.
04:07Where's some places we're going?
04:09We could go shopping, be a man about town.
04:11You may ride your bike somewhere
04:12like Pat does with his fam.
04:14Today we're going to a local pinball spot
04:16and playing a few games.
04:22My role over the years has changed drastically.
04:24Early on, I was the one and only crew member,
04:27if you want to call it a crew member,
04:28and I had to learn how to tune guitars,
04:30and I drove the van and I collected the money,
04:33did all the stuff that was needed to be done for a van tour.
04:36What's changed is, thankfully,
04:37because the van's gotten more and more successful,
04:40there's been a lot more people to do all these jobs.
04:43What has changed about touring over the most over all the years?
04:47Technology itself has changed, and that changes everything.
04:51It makes the ability to watch a football game on your phone
04:55or a baseball game on your phone, in your bunk,
04:57even while the bus is moving,
04:59because the Wi-Fi is so much better than it used to be.
05:01I bring a portable DVD player.
05:04That's the technology I prefer.
05:06And I have this nice little suitcase
05:07that everything ergonomically fits in.
05:10My DVDs, the player itself, it's a 9-inch Sony.
05:13My favorite thing to watch presently are Columbo episodes.
05:20I was enjoying baking chocolate chips in my dressing room,
05:25but I had to stop doing that
05:26because it turns out that's not good for you, so...
05:29I eat the same snacks, pretty much.
05:32I steal them from the dressing room and hide them in the bus.
05:34At night, when we're on our way somewhere else,
05:36kettle chips, the brown bag ones, blueberry.
05:39Some of the snacks that I actually do eat are blueberries,
05:43as you see on this table.
05:44What people typically expect is that it's some kind of huge wild party.
05:48Backstage, it's just like this super crazy zone
05:50full of nonsense and debauchery.
05:53At least on a Weezer tour, it's so not like that.
05:56It's much more calm and collected and business-like,
05:59but still funny.
06:00There's great, wonderful people that are great to know and meet,
06:03but there's so little debauchery, it's comical, really.
06:06One thing probably people don't realize, wouldn't know,
06:09is just how almost military-like operation at least Weezer is.
06:16We are such sticklers to time, and we don't adhere to normal times
06:21or, like, round number times.
06:23We never leave at 11.30.
06:25We leave at 11.27.
06:27We go onstage at 9.12.
06:30You know, why don't you go onstage at 9 or 9.15?
06:32Because we don't.
06:33I don't care what they say about us anyway
06:37I don't care about that
06:41I love playing Shine again.
06:43It's a great opener.
06:44Good song to come out and just start rocking right away, too.
06:46We'll shine
06:48I've really been enjoying when we have a duet with Nicki from Silver Sun.
06:53Visually, the stage really comes to life,
06:55not just because there's an extra person on stage,
06:57but because of the graphics and the video and everything.
06:59It really just looks amazing.
07:16It's hard to know what songs the crowds react the best to
07:20unless you invite them to be part of the song, which we do.
07:25We do this in Say It Ain't So, first chorus.
07:29We don't say it.
07:30They do.
07:38It's a little trick of the trade.
07:40You let them do the work.
07:41For this tour, El Scorcho's been going over like Gangbusters 2
07:46because we let them sing the whole last chorus.
07:58I mean, right now, I think they really love hearing go away.
08:02That's the one I hear the most screams for.
08:04Can you imagine screams or squeams at a Weezer show?
08:10For Brian to start playing the riff and then to hear people scream?
08:13It's like the Beatles.
08:14Yeah, it's like a mini Beatles moment.
08:17It's really fun.
08:18Go away, go away, go away, go away, go away.
08:25What makes this tour special?
08:27Well, it's a wonderful life to be able to do this for a living and also feel like we're
08:33not just spinning our wheels and rehashing the past.
08:36We're doing new things with old songs.
08:38We have new music left to record still and put out.
08:41And it's just a very exciting time in Weezer.
08:43And I'm in awe with it every day, just how prolific we can be.
08:47It's always pushing me to better my musicianship, better my relationships within the band and
08:53just get closer and closer.
