The Tour That Was To Be

Not long now and I'll be on the road for six consecutive nights of partying, playing, jetting, and networking around the country.

Sound to good to be true?

Well it is. 

The hard fact is that touring is tough. 

This five day tour will no doubt have me out of action for a couple of weeks when I get home. I now find it very easy to understand why so many rockstars end up ODing. You try getting through months at a time of waking up in a different city each day, having only slept a few hours. If you're lucky.

Let me take you through a typical day of touring

You get up at 4am after having only gotten home at 2am from the show the previous night.

Lobby call is generally 4 or 5am as you usually need to hop on the earliest flight out being the 6am.

You drag yourself to the airport (if you're lucky like us, you'll have your own roadie to load your gear and drive you around but most bands don't have that luxury), get in an hour or two of sleep on the plane. Then you land around 8-9am, collect the hire car, and drop the band off at the hotel. 

But not the whole band, usually it's just the rhythm section and engineer.

Then the tour manager, roadie and singer hit the road for morning interviews and drop ins. This usually takes a few hours and then we're back at the hotel for lunch by just after midday.

come 3pm you're either sound checking, rehearsing, or cramming in as many meetings as humanly possible. Then come 5pm you're off to soundcheck for sure, you might go and get some dinner between sound check and bedtime. Most gigs finish up around midnight, and if you're a headliner act (which on tour you usually are) that's when you finish, then you get a few drinks in there and head off to bed around 2:00ish

And then repeat for a number of days.

But the fact that it's hard work doesn't mean it's not fun.

Touring is the best bonding time a band can have. Being around one another when you're all that grumpy and sleep deprived is a perfect recipe for drama, but a lot of shit gets aired and you all come back playing better, doing business better and working together better. 

Above is my first crack at designing my own tour poster.
Not bad? I think I did okay.

The image was taken by yours truly on the last tour when we visited MONA whilst in Hobart.
Amazing gallery, hoping we can fit in another visit when we're in Hobart again in a couple of weeks.

We took many amazing snaps of Tim which we've used for tons of publicity, maybe something I should include in my post tomorrow.

Hayley Jane
xx