well after tomorrow, hotels and the bus will be home for us for the next 10 weeks. it always takes some getting used to but, after a week you figure out how to make it work for you. not every hotel bed is comfortable. and then there’s a question of eating. it always takes my stomach a week to adjust to british food. and an english breakfast sometimes leaves my stomach in pain. so i have to ease back into it.

so you figure, for a 9pm show we usually are leaving the venue around 11:30, earliest. no matter how tired you say you are after the show, you inevitable wind up at the hotel pub till 1am. then you did your best to get some shut eye until that hated wake-up call comes, which on this tour, will probably be around 11am in the UK and MUCH earlier abroad (because of the distances of the cities in Europe). after everyone has checked out of the hotel and taken a seat on the bus, people go about their business. generally, our tour manager, BENT, will tell us the days’ plan (although it’s probably in our iteniary books but, who reads those?) and then we set off. people read, sleep or listen to music. I like these rides and i always fall asleep and start snoring.

we pull into a town around 2pm and check in our new hotel. this usually takes less than 10 minutes, more if the ensemble are with us. from there, (sound guy) Kose and (Stage tech) Tchoelz drive over to the venue with the gear and guitars and set everything up. when soundcheck is ready (around 4/4:30-ish), they either come back for us or, if it’s close enough we’ll walk. we make sure all the sounds are good and the monitors are set right and then we run through songs and sometimes rehearse newer stuff as well. when we’re done we either go back to the hotel, go round a pub to eat or eat at the venue. this is usually around 6/6:30 when we’re done. so, you usually get a few hours off before you need to be back to the venue. Kose makes sure everything is working properly ansd Tchoez makes sure all the guitars are tuned up and the amps are working fine.

so, we hit the stage about 9pm and play anywhere from a 75 minute set to 2 hours, depending on what the Singer feels like doing. And, though we generally use a set list (this is partially for the engineers), sometimes the Singer just calls stuff out, like at the Scala March. After teh show we’ll say hi to old friends, have a drink and stuff while Kose and Tchoez breaks the gear down and loads it up. Bent does his business thing and we just chill. Once everything is done, we head back to the hotel and do it all over again. other than days off, this is pretty much our routine for the next 2 months.

Mike Randle