A Tour Must Die

And here we are, at the end of the "A Singer Must Die" tour. We played 11 shows in 3 weeks, drove a lot of miles and made some amazing music. For the curious, my average show day went like this;

2:30PM - Arrive onsite and begin loading in mic kit, merch, etc...

2:45PM - Check hospitality, dressing rooms & green room.

3:00PM - Place piano, chairs, music stands, mics, etc.....

3:15PM - Line check and discuss lighting with LD.

3: 30PM - Artists arrives and loads in.

3:45PM - Tune PA and setup console.

4:00PM - Soundcheck begins. Continue lighting focus.

5:00PM - Set stage for Sonata and rehearse.

5:30PM - Finish soundcheck and head for quick dinner.

6:00PM - Quick chat with piano tuner.

6:15PM - Bring merch to front and count in with seller.

6:30PM - Pick up cheque from promoter & check final lighting focus.

6:45PM - Head to Box Office and sort out artist comps.

7:00PM - Go over house requirements with ushers & house captain.

7:15 PM - Final stage check, place water for everyone onstage.

7:30PM - Doors open. Get changed for show & check in with artist.

7:45PM - Head to FOH and do pre-show check.

8:00PM - The curtain goes up and the show is on.

9:00PM - Intermission. Restore stage layout.

9:15PM - Second half of show.

10:15PM - Show finished. Strike mics & gather sheet music.

10:30PM - Take Steven & Andrew to front for singing.

10:45PM - Begin loading car.

11:15PM - Settle merch & get final ticket count.

11:30PM - Leave venue.

So that's a show day in a nutshell for me. Depending on how tired I am after the show I may send the merch sheets and show reports off afterwards before bed, or I may wait until the morning. Just to post it, here is the schedule of shows:

Feb 24, 2010 - Brantford
Feb 25, 2010 - Oakville
Feb 27, 2010 - Markham
March 3, 2010 - Kingston
March 4, 2010 - Toronto
March 5, 2010 - St. Catharines
March 6, 2010 - Kitchener
March 7, 2010 - North Bay
March 10, 2010 - Brampton
March 11, 2010 - Belleville
March 12, 2010 - Barrie

There was originally a 12th show planned in Peterborough on the 13th, but that got canned due to poor promotions which of course led to poor sales. Today the tour is over and I'm settling the final paperwork, merch counts and so on. Was it perfect? Of course not. There were errors made by many people, things were forgotten, times overlooked, directions misread, buyouts shorted, merch counts short, prices inverted (don't even ask), and promoters who tried to cheap out. But as the ageless expression says, "The show must go on". And on it went, regardless of all other issues. When the curtain went up, 7 amazing musicians walked onstage and brought the magic. Out in the house I stood at my console du jour and did my best to help create a memory for those present. Some shows sounded better than others, some PA's & rooms were easier to deal with than others and some people apparently choose to ignore riders & contracts. But much like the 7 artists onstage, I am also a professional. Save the complaints for the next day and get on with the show, don't get set back anymore by less than optimal conditions. From an audio standpoint, this was a much different gig than my average gig, if I have such a thing. This was about making people forget there's even a PA there. I know that's a good thing on any gig, but this one especially was all about transparency and making everything sound as natural as possible. I'd like to think I stepped up to the plate and delivered on my end. I know by the time we were 3 shows into it, things were sounding pretty much the same as how I heard it in my head. Hopefully that's how the artists would like to hear it as well.

I already spoke in my last post about all the things I love about the band, the music and the gig. And now I'm back to "life as usual". How do I feel? Well there's a lot of mixed emotions. I'm going to miss lots of things; The adventure of constantly changing venues, the joy of meeting and working with a new crew every show, the camaraderie with everyone in the group; much like what Neil Peart calls "The guys at the office", and especially I'm going to miss seeing that show over and over. It never got old, and it was a joy to watch and be part of every night. I'm also "coming back home" to a slightly less than perfect picture. There are some things going on with my marriage right now that are going to require some serious thought, discussion and most likely some tears. Maybe the last month of being constantly occupied made things worse, but in this case I kinda doubt it. It was easy to just forget about my life's problems when I had a million other things to occupy my thoughts. But I am glad to be coming home and seeing my family, getting up in the morning with my son and getting spend time with him. We're headed to the supercross races today, though he doesn't know it yet. :-)

Did I accomplish everything I set out to on this tour?? Maybe not everything, but I still feel good about the whole experience. I met some great people, mixed some great shows, got to see some new venues and made some very good business contacts. And most importantly, I held it together. When everything started to go south and people started to flail, I held the calm and solved problems one at a time. After all I'm not paid to have problems, I am paid to create solutions.

Song Of The Day

Today's song is one that I've been listening to a lot lately, mostly due to things going on in my life. It's one of those instances that I feel like the songwriter has looked directly into my life and my heart and put it beautifully into music and lyrics. The songs is called "Nothing is ever enough" by Derek Webb, off his second solo album "I see things upside down". The youtube link is to an acoustic performance of the song which is good, but I highly recommend that you download the album version, actually the whole album for that matter. I know this is my second Derek Webb tune already in not too many posts, well..... deal with it. I love his music and so much of speaks to me very strongly. In fact, I feel a post coming on soon that'll be dedicated entirely to Derek Webb.