Marching

Today is our first off day after 19 straight days of gigs. We're in Montgomery, Alabama and since this is the first Internet we've had in a week or so, we're all scattered about getting our stacked up work done. We leave for Canada tomorrow night after the gig and the drive is about 20 hours to the border, so we're not complaining about sitting still tonight. Today is all about recharging some seriously depleted batteries.
Our latest guitar tech (our equivalent of Spinal Tap's drummer) bowed out day before yesterday and that brings us up to a grand total of 12 former techs. I don't blame anyone for not wanting the job, because this is something that you have to love with all your heart, or it will eat you up. If you do it for the paycheck, don't bother.
The road is hard. It's no sleep, damn little rest, and 100's of miles in the van everyday with sore muscles and ringing ears. It's sore fingers that are crazy-glued together, bags of dirty clothes, an endless search for Starbucks, laundromats, Internet, decent food, etc. It's spending hours with the cell phone mashed against your ear as if you could will your wife and kids through the lines to be with you.
Like all things in life, there are always blessings mixed with the rain. Being on stage with this band and creating the kind of music we create every night is an incredible feeling. The sonic aurora borealis we get to ride every night is amazing. There's also a great sense of accomplishment when you ride 8 hours, load the gear in and set up with no sleep and are able to pull yourself and each other up and put the show on that you know can, then load out, back to the hotel grab 4 or 5 hours of sleep and do it all over again. We just did 19 shows in 19 days...non stop...no tour bus, no backstage rider, no special treatment, just the burning desire to keep the music going.