As always, up at 7 and off to Starbucks. Shoulda bought stock in this damn place!
C.J., one of the runners, comes to the hotel at 11am to pick up Janet Taylor (the production office manager) and me. We're off to Albertson's (grocery store) to stock up our buses. I have so much shit in that shopping cart an hour later that I can barely push it. Cases and cases of beer, soda, water. Bottles of liquor and wine. Tons of all kinds of food, mostly of the junky variety. The tab comes to $312.03. Head to the venue to load it all onto the bus, then head to the hotel (on the bus) to pick everybody up and finish the checkout. It can be a real bitch to check out 35 people, but that's a story for another time…
Tonight's the first night we'll be sleeping on the bus. My bus has the 4 backline guys (guitar tech, keyboard tech, bass tech and drum tech), the 3 catering guys, the 2 merch guys and me. Only 3 cigarette smokers and maybe a total of 5 pot smokers. Could be worse. At least the front lounge of the bus is a non-smoking area. I was gonna be on the completely smoke-free bus, the for various reasons it made more sense for me to ride this bus. I don't mind, as this bus will leave the hotel an hour or two later than the other buses, so maybe I'll get more QT at a few Starbucks locations around the country.
My bus is red and silver, and is called Tobasco by the bus company. It's got 12 bunks, so since there's only 10 of us, we have a couple of "junk bunks" to throw assorted bags and briefcases into. Luggage goes under the bus in the bays, but most everyone these days has a backpack of some sort.
On this bus, we've got all the toys. The front lounge has a LARGE widescreen HDTV, along with a smaller flat screen diagonally across the bus from it. In the rear lounge, there's a medium size flat screen. Two satellite systems, so no fighting about what's on. Each bunk has its own fold down flat screen TV and its own DVD player. I may need to put a brighter reading light in my bunk, but that's about the only thing I'd want to change.
We also have a roaming internet receiver and our own onboard highspeed wireless network. We can check email and websurf at 70mph. Good stuff!
Tonight's show goes well. Settlement is a bitch and takes a couple of hours. The deal that the band's agent cut with all the promoters is a bit vague and the promoter is fighting me about the language of the contracts. I'm having none of it and they're not too happy with me. My interpretation has me making more and them making about $12k less.
We finally get the deal done – my way, of course.
Make it out to the bus around 1:30 and hang out with a few guys. Crawl in my bunk a little after 2am. Snnnzzzzz…
Follow the Bobzilla's Photos link at the right to see photos from my travels.
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