Hank: So I've just arrived at the practice space. The cab driver when, when she dropped me off, it was an Uber driver, and uh, she looked at the place where she was dropping me off and she--she full on, she was like, 'Are you sure that this is where you want me to leave you?' And I -- I -- yes.

It is a weird place, but um, she was a very nice woman and I also am really glad I took an Uber this morning, because I left my bag in the car and she drove away -- which is, you know, to be expected, and uh, with Uber, if you remember fast enough, you just send them a little lost item notification, they send you the driver's phone number. I just called her, she's at the CVS around the corner, she's gonna come by, and I've got a $20 bill with her name on it. I'm excited to see Pauline again. (laughs)

So fr--I mean, I'm pretty freaked out right now, I have, you know, got the--got the adrenaline flutters, so uh, yeah, there's like $200, there's like $400 of $2 bills in there, and you know, various equipment, but mostly my laptop is what I'm concerned about, and the stuff that is on it. So that's terrifying, I'm a little less freaked out now, I'll be super less freaked out when I see that red Grand Caravan come around the corner. So yeah, this has been a not a fun -- super fun way to start the day out, but I think everything's gonna be okay. 

(intro music)

Hank: I'm Hank Green, this is Podcast Because Awesome. Today is the day where our tour officially begins. We have our first show! So that's gonna happen. You're not gonna hear any of it, at all, because I didn't record any of it. But you will hear some opinions of some friends of mine who've come to see me for the first time.

You'll hear a disaster occur, which has actually already happened, but that got worked out. The cab driver did indeed return with my bag, with all $400 in $2 bills inside of it still. So things are going well at the Tour Because Awesome 2015, and this is Podcast Because Awesome. 

(instruments playing in background)
Hank: Alright, we're about halfway through our set, it's sounding okay, we've only had major mess-ups like twice, I'm eating my breakfast, which sounds like this.

(crinkling noises)

Hank: So that's definitely healthy, right? When breakfast sounds like that. It's Combos, Pizzeria Pretzel flavored. They're baked, so it's good for you! No, they're -- they're energy dense. That's what I need. I dropped one on the floor. I'm gonna eat it now.

(instrument tuning, song starting)

Hank: We're gonna play a song. (singing) One, two, one two three --

Hank: (speaking) Alright, so, once you've rehearsed, then you have to go play the show, and that means driving to the venue. And that loud thing turning on and putting a bunch of equipment in the place temporarily, then bringing it back out, so now we're loading in, that's what that's called, it's called load in, and we're gonna do it now.

Rob: Thank you sir, can you get this? Yeah, I can grab that guitar. Or that.

Hank: So while I was unloading, a group of fans, young people came up to me and they wanted to talk, so I talked to them.

Hank: (to fans) You guys are not dressed properly.

Female fan 1: We're dedicated!

Hank: I hope you don't have to wait here for a long time.

Female fan 2: No, we have parents.

Hank: OK, good.

Female fan 2: Oh my god, I'm gonna cry. I guess I'll take a picture. I'm shaking!

Female fan 1: We're all like shaking.

Female fan 3: You're Hank!

Hank: Hi, I am.

Female fan 3: Will you Hanklerfish my --

Hank: Oh, sure.

Female fan 3: "Don't Panic!"

Female fan 2: Phone case! That's a good idea!

Hank: Okay, I gotta get in there.

Female fans: Thank you so much!

Hank: Yeah, see you soon!

Rob: Yeah, that's what I need to do. Command, lead the band.

(Hank laughs)

Rob: From this high i could podcast, too, while drumming.

Hank: You should. 

Rob: 'And right now I'm in the middle of a song, I feel pretty good. alright this next song, I'm really excited about.'

Hank: Heading backstage from the stage is always weird. I always like to try and-- there's always a place where people have signed the wall and put stickers. I like to put a Hanklerfish somewhere, just to add my thing.

(sharpie noises)

And now there's a Hanklerfish on the wall at the Metro, it just happened. Oh, wow, there's stairs back here. There's lots of stairs back here, what the heck? There's a balcony, there's access to the balcony. Then there's access to the second floor, there's a coat, somebody's fancy sheepy coat. No idea. Well there's Joe, so I must be going the right way.

Joe: Where you going?

Hank: I don't know. Just trying to get a feel for the place. Oh, oh, oh. Okay. Well, this is where I came from. It was surprisingly uncomplicated. I dunno, is there a -- usually there's a greenroom backstage. This one says Peasant Room, oh. Is this the greenroom?

Voice 2: No, it's not.

Hank: It is not. But it's awesome, I love your office.

Voice 2: This is uh -- the greenroom's much nicer than this. You go down the stairs and uh, you'll some lockers on the right, and it's right there.

Hank: Okay, thank you.

Voice 2: Yeah.

(walking noises)

Hank: This isn't the greenroom, it's the greenrooms! Just in case you really don't like each other.

Sam: Oh yeah. We were playing in here one time and the people got mad at us for being loud.

Voice (?): Shhhhhh

Hank: Like in the greenroom?

Sam: Yeah, it was a different band.

Craig: Got mad at us for what?

Hank: Being loud.

Craig: Was it me, or was it, were you with -- 

Sam: No, that was with another band.

Craig: We have an Xbox in our van, I'm going to attempt gaming videos while we're in the van. I brought a thing that I use to do Xbox.

Hank: That sounds impossible.

Craig: Well, we'll see. I'm gonna bring a loud mic, too. To comment.

Hank: We had an Xbox in the van on The Fault in Our Stars tour, and I gave myself a blister --

(Craig laughs)

Hank: -- Playing Xbox and it interfered with my guitar playing. It was like 'This was a dumb idea.' But I just play this one game over and over again. It was like a boxing game.

Craig: Yeah.

Hank: Just punching people in the head.

Craig: (laughs) Well yeah, you gotta --

Hank: I got pretty good at it.

Craig: So, now that you've talked to Obama.

Hank: Yeah.

Craig: Does everything else matter at all anymore? Just, I mean --

Hank: Yes, everything matters just as much as it did before.

Craig: Okay.

Hank: It is like a really amazing resume thing, like I can be like -- and people will do this, without asking me and I think it makes me uncomfortable, that like, to qualify my legitimacy they'll be like 'He interviewed the President.'

(Craig laughs)

Hank: And then I don't have to be like, 'Yeah, I make a YouTube show, it's popular. And we make money this way, and the people watch because X and Y' and it sort of takes like ten minutes to explain to anyone.

Craig: Yeah, now you're just like --

Hank: Now it's just -- now I'm like 'Oh, I make YouTube -- ' and my friend's like 'He interviewed the President' and then it's like 'Oh, Okay.'

(Craig laughs)

Hank: Conversation's over. Then we talk about that.

Sam: Well, I saw you, you really got like thrown into like a bunch of like, sort of like TV appearances like right after.

Hank: I did. Like literally, right afterward, they threw me physically --

Craig: Oh, wow.

Sam: It seemed like two weeks you were on a bunch of things. Did that kind of, did that sometime peter out a little bit, or -- ?

Hank: Well, a lot of it was filmed like, literally at the White House and they just, and they aired it later. I just read a really interesting article by a person who thought that he had discovered John Green. And he was like 'This guy's amazing, he does these really great educational videos on YouTube' and then when he found out that John Green was also the author of The Fault in Our Stars, and also the Vlogbrothers, and also all the other things John does, he felt kind of disappointed that he like --

Craig: That he didn't discover him.

Hank: It's like listening to Paul McCartney for the first time and being like 'This guy's going places!'

Right now it's time for sound check. That's a nice guitar.

Andrew: It's Rob's. It's very pretty.

Hank: Look how pretty it is. This is how sound check works. I honestly don't really know. So in front of me there are these two speakers that are pointed directly at me. And the goal is that I get, in that thing, what I want to hear, which is mostly me so that I can tell if I'm making the right noises, if I am off key. But I also like want some other stuff in there so that I know like what part of the song we're at and I'm not super confused. So I usually like to have -- I mean, drums are loud enough on their own, but I usually just have some keys, and some guitar. And there's that nice keyboard, Joe DeGeorge testing that out. So that's a whole separate mix, everybody on the stage gets their own mix and then the audience gets their mix as well. So, we get like five and they get like one.

Voice 3: Uhh, I think that one's ready.

Hank: Hello. (singing) Sometimes the world looks perfect / Nothing to rearrange / And sometimes you just get a feeling / Like you need some kind of change / No matter what the odds are this time / Nothing's gonna stand in my way / This flame in my heart / Like a long lost friend / Gives every dark dream light at the end / Standing tall on the wings of my dreams / Rise and fall on the wings of my dreams / The rain and thunder / the wind and haze / I'm bound for better days / It's my life and my dreams (microphone turns down) But I was almost done.

Voice 3: It sounded good.

Joe: Can we see what the sax is, individually?

(sax plays)

Hank: I just found my friends Paul and Betsy from Missoula, they moved to Chicago what, three or four years ago?

Both: Three years, yeah.

(audience screams)

Hank: Three years ago. Uhm, we're backstage. You can hear Harry and the Potter in the background. What do you guys think?

(song in background starts)

Betsy: I feel so hip. (Hank laughs) I don't know what to think. This is amazing!

Paul (not DeGeorge): I'm a little overwhelmed seeing a friend, who's such a big celebrity, in his element, just rocking it. It's pretty cool.

Hank: Yeah.

Paul: It's pretty cool.

Hank: Yeah, cause you, like, know that it's a thing. But seeing it at being a thing is different.

Paul: Exactly. Yeah, you kinda knew it was this alternative reality out there in the world of Hank Green, he was a big deal, and now I'm like, seeing it.

Hank: Screaming.

Paul: it's uh, it's pretty cool, it suits you.

Hank: Okay. I mean, I haven't seen you with this new hair cut and beard. You look like you could be a, you know, I don't know if it's a rockstar, but I feel like you could totally be looking like a pu -- like a guy who's gonna come and talk at a conference and everybody's gonna be like, 'Oh, he has such good ideas. Like that scarf.'

(Betsy laughs)

Paul: That scarf, right, like, 'Whatever he just said, I don't know, but he was wearing a scarf. That was a good idea.'

Hank: I like it.

Paul (DeGeorge): I'm feeling great, I've already been onstage --

Hank: That's Paul DeGeorge talking, he's talking right now, that's Paul, I just wanted to introduce --

Paul: Thanks for talking over me, Hank.

Hank: That's how it works on podcasts! The person says the first line, and then they say, 'This is Paul DeGeorge, he's a member of Harry and the Potters.'

Paul: I -- well, I've already been on stage and this crowd is really good. I don't know if it was just Chicago, but there's a lot of wizards out there, so --

Hank: Yeah, you had -- and they were singing along with Driftless Pony Club, too. They're fans of all of it.

Paul: Yeah, so.

Hank: I don't know if they were singing along with Andrew. 

Paul: Really?

Hank: Did you hear any sing-alongs? 

Andrew: I didn't, but I did hear a 'Play that song again!' after I played a 15 second song.

Paul: Oh! That's a good one, that's a good one. 'Play that one again.'

Andrew: So. Yeah.

Andrew: I really liked it. Do it again immediately.

Paul: We got a request for 'Last Christmas' by Wham.

Andrew: I love that!

Paul: Mid-set.

Hank: That's we -- somebody was just like, 'Last Christmas by Wham!' 

Paul: Well, they didn't say 'By Wham' they just said 'Last Christmas.'

Hank: Why didn't you play Last Christmas?

Paul: Well we weren't prepped for it and it didn't really fit with the theme.

(all laugh)

Hank: (singing) Last Christmas, Ron's mom gave me a sweater. It was the very first present that I ever received.

Paul: Yeah. It's cl -- it's pretty close. We got a cake from Hagrid.

Andrew: Are we ready to go?

Hank: Well we were waiting on you.

Andrew: Oh, cool. Where's Rob?

Hank: He's -- I think he's still up there. You ready? Ready for the show?

Rob: Yes.

Hank: You've already been onstage twice.

Rob: Yeah, yeah.

Hank: I've also been onstage, everybody here's been onstage already.

Andrew: We know the drill now.

Rob: Yeah, we got it, we got it down.

Andrew: Where's Joe now?

Hank: We lost Joe.

Paul: He's just changing.

Hank: Oh yeah, he wants to be not a wizard.

Paul: To a human.

Hank: Regular boy.

Paul: Well, 'human' in quotes. Let the record show human in air quotes.

Andrew: Human disguise. Human is the costume, wizard is the natural form.

Hank: Right. Whatever Joe DeGeorge is. I think he may just be ET.

Paul: Joe's already titled his autobiography and it's 'Barely Human: The Joe DeGeorge Story.'

(all laugh)

Rob: I'm gonna get a water bottle.

Hank: Alright. We've got two bandanas now. 

Joe: Got two.

Hank: Gotta have two.

Joe: Gotta have two, everybody does it in the future. It's the style.

Paul: 2015.

Hank: It is the future now.

Andrew: Gotta bring it in, Bring it in! uuuuuuuh.. Who's pep-talking today?

Rob: Alright everybody, we're gonna go out there, we're gonna do it and we're gonna do it really really good.

Andrew: Alright, I like it.

Many people: Everybody goop on three? Goop!

(all clapping and chatting)

Rob: I can't imaging that the audio would be very good on your phone.

Hank: That went fantastically I think. Oh, they're already loading out. This is happening so fast. Um. Yeah.

Rob: Good job.

Hank: Thank you. I think that was a great show, I'm gonna see if I can find my wife.

Hank: And then we went back to sleep as quickly as we could. We got pizza first. Got some pizza, but then ran very quickly back to the hotel so that we could go to sleep, because it was an early morning the next morning, and we had to head over to Detroit, because that's the next stop on the tour is Detroit, and we have to get there, but you're gonna find out about that on the next episode of Tour Because Awesome, because that is the next day of Tour Because Awesome. This is Podcast Because Awesome. Thank you for listening.