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Sunday, July 10th, 2011

Kill the Devil, Day 11 (Jon's Day 2)

From Jon W.
Room 215, Travelodge
Kill Devil Hills, NC
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Pitching middle relief, day 2 . . .

Day 2 of tour for me with John Common and Blinding Flashes of Light, although I think today may have been day 11 for the rest of them. Adam (keyboardist) started the tour but was not able to play for this particular week, so I'm filling in for him in the meantime. From what I've been told, I'm supposedly coming in during the "hardest stretch" of the tour. I suppose it's all relative, as I know I wouldn't have wanted to be driving through Alabama in a crowded van without air conditioning. Still, there are some extra long drives this week, combined with some extra busy days as we try to squeeze in some radio/TV stuff on the way to gigs.

Nevertheless, this tour has been fun so far (in my two days). A few lessons learned (or re-learned in some cases): (1) Don't play a gig the night before leaving for tour. Granted, I had a solo gig booked long before John asked me to fill in, but in hindsight it would have been wise for me to cancel. After getting about 3 1/2 hours sleep after my gig on Friday night, I was proud of myself just for waking up at 3am on Saturday morning. "Waking up" may be an exaggeration though. I physically got out of bed, but was in no way alert enough to complete the simplest of tasks. To start with, I missed the exit to the airport parking lot, and then proceeded to loop around for a while and almost get in an accident before getting on track and getting to the gate, just 25 minutes before departure.

I was able to gain some airplane sleep on the flight to Atlanta (which isn't really "sleep" at all), and then again from Atlanta to Charlotte. I arrived safely in NC, although still feeling pretty out of it from the crazy sleep schedule (or lack thereof). I think things had to be this way in order for there to be a comfortable transition of keyboardists on this tour. The rest of the group had been roughing it for far longer than me, so I think it helped for me to enter their world of altered realitythat we call "touring," via sleep deprivation.

The other lesson I was reminded of, and thankfully grasped quickly, is that you absolutely, 100%, without a doubt, cannot enter any tour with the expectation of things to unfold perfectly. It just doesn't happen that way because there are 1000 X factors, and if you expect differently, you're gonna have a very tough experience. I was already slightly nervous entering this tour. Not because of the band or the music--I already know they're a great band, and I know the music very well also. Instead, I was nervous because I would be using the earlier keyboardist's setup, of which I am not at all familiar with. Combine that with the fact that for the first gig he had forgotten to leave the combination to his locked suitcase--which contained all of the cables and power supplies--and I was stressing. Thankfully Daren (drummer) is crafty enough to have figured out a MacGyver plan to remove the suitcase hinge, thus bypassing the combination lock altogether. Apparently he's spent time in prison or something, who knows.

Sunday's show was a little tough. It's tough to draw anywhere on a Sunday night, no matter where or who you are, and this night was no exception. I think it was a little extra frustrating however given that we had taken 7 hours to get there. Still, I'd rather drive 7 hours to play a gig then drive 10 minutes to work in customer service all day, any day of the week. Plus we had some rare downtime to spend at the beach, so it was a good day.

The band and others talk about how "hard" touring is, and how "grueling" things are spending all day in a van and driving for hours at a time. While I certainly don't discount the mental stamina it takes to tour, I still feel extremely fortunate to be in this position. Yes, there are some definite challenges with touring that are unique from any other profession. Today was a perfect example--we drove 7 hours to play for 45 minutes. Think about that for a second. A 7 hour drive to work, to then work for 45 minutes. I don't know any other job in which that is even somewhat normal. And we'll continue to do that for the rest of the week, cramming 7 people and an insane amount of luggage and equipment into a van.

And like I said, today was day 2 for me, and day 11 for them. Maybe I'll be seeing things differently by the end of the week. But in the meantime, I feel very fortunate. No one kidnapped me and threw me into this situation, driving state to state to play. John asked, and I happily agreed. I went to the ocean today, had a delicious seafood dinner, played some music, and I'm gonna play some more music and see family on Monday when repeat all of this in Virginia. All this being said, I feel pretty damn lucky.

Things could be way harder--I could be stuck at home doing nothing.

Posted By John Common at: 11:07 pm

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Sunday, July 10th, 2011

Kill the Devil, Day 11 (Jon's Day 2)

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