Ahhh Im going to be good at this away from home thing. I got crew experience minus the technical aspect of flying an airplane
. Below is my perspective of 4 days of a 10 day tour last winter with the low budget band I play in. Yes I am bored at work today. Enjoy, and my lap top sucks so forgive the grammer errors.
Day 1 - Vegas to Flagstaff - weather in Flagstaff is snow and we are running late. Get to Flagstaff and an hour late and its 15 degrees out. Find a hotel for $80 a night with 1 bed. There are 6 people in the van for the entire 10 day tour. A 4 hour drive get to the venue, unload the trailer in the snow, a few crew members slip on ice,we get a good laugh at their expense for a moment. The venue has no heat. Wait for showtime. Show was ok, the guitar players could barely play due to mild frost bite on the fingers. Time to drink a little before last call. Head back to hotel room. Only 3 can sleep in the room the others are in the van. I was in the van, what a long cold night.
Hours slept - 4.5
Merch sales - $20
Venue pay - $50
People at the show - 75
Day 2 - Flagstaff to Phoenix - Wake up at 8 am a few of us go get some coffee on foot. We are all on a $3.00 a meal budget. Its still cold but the coffee was top-notch. Calculate the distance from Flag to Phx and gear up to check out of the hotel. All good until we try to start the van. Dead battery from blasting the heat all night for 4.5 hours. One hour later we get a jump and onto Phoenix. Get to the venue located in the ghetto an hour early. Head out on foot for food then back to the venue to load in. There are 8 bands on this bill. The show went well. Its about 1 am and we load up. The next stop is San Diego so we cant stay in Phoenix due to the long drive to SD. One hour into the drive one of the guitar players remembers he forgot his back pack at the venue with all of his pedels, cables, cash ect. We head back to PHX get the bag and off again. One hour later we get a call from the PHX venue promoter, he tells me the other guitar player forgot his pedels, cables ect. Back we go to PHX. What a long night. No after show beers either.
Hours slept- 4
Hours driven - 7 and counting
Merch - $10
Venue pay - $50
People at the show - 100
Day 3 - Phoenix to San Diego - It 7 am and we are still driving from PHX. We should have arrived by now but some of the crew forgot some important things in PHX causing us to re-route back to PHX 2 times. Finally a nice veiw of the ocean as we approach San Diego. Since the load in is 1pm we go to the beach to hang out. Unfortunently food is very expensive in SD and we are all on the $3 a mean budget we all chip in out $3 and get a pizza. After a little sight seeing we head to the venue. No one is there and we find a note reading "Due to a power failure in the building the show has been moved to DelMar below is the address. We whip out the map and plot the course to DelMar which is about 35 min north of SD. One of the crew thinks he knows a way to divert to avoid area traffic so we divert. Unfortunently the change in our original heading has tacked on an extra 30 min to what shoud have only take us 45 min to complete. After a little stress and tension we arrive to the new location. We are a little late and unload the trailer as quick as we can since we play 1st. The show was okay at best. Not a lot of people due to re-locating the show. The next show is LA so we have time and head out to find a cheap hotel near downtown SD. We end up meeting some nice people to show us around and lend us some floor space in their house to sleep on. It was a fun night and the house was a mansion overlooking the Pacific Ocean so we arent complaining. Finally a full night sleep until their parents get home at 4 am and throw all of us out. Broke, hungry and no place to go. It looks like we will be sleeping in the van. At least we had an ocean view.
Hours slept- 4
Hours spent driving - countless
Merch sales - $0
Venue pay - $20
People at the show - 30
Day 4 San Diego to Los Angeles - The WX is pretty bad this morning for SD. Rain, fog, wind. We decide since its raining and a few of us are soaked from sleeping on the beach that its time to head to LA. There is a lot of uphill driving on this leg and pulling a 1000lb packed up trailer with a 15 passenger van with strong crosswinds is going to be tough. So far we are in day 4 and only one of us has had the luxury of a shower so the van is not smelling so ripe anymore and the humid air is not helping. All is good and the van is holding firm against the winds until we loose a hub on the trailer axle causing the van to swerve almost out of control. Time to pull over and inspect the damage. Lucky for us one of the crew used to be a mechanic and told us he can fix it. After a little MX (2 hours) and long walk to get parts and $100 later we were ready to depart again. The MX delay managed to throw us in the middle of LA rush hour traffic. Three hours later we get the our destination. Tonights show is at the legendary Whiskey A Go-Go on the Sunset Strip. No time to sight see, we are late and have to unload asap. We unload, check our show time and grab a beer. Lucky for us we have friends in LA so we know we will have a free place to sleep along with a shower. The show went great. Time to load up the trailer and make sleeping arrangements. We end up only a few miles from the venue however there is no where to park the van and trailer. Someone will have to double park and sleep in the van. Next stop is Santa Barbara and the WX should be okay.
Hours slept - 6.5
Hours driven - 5
Merch sales - $100
Venue pay - $100
People at the show - 250
Even if the first day is just a deadhead.
and New York
