Thirty Foot Crash

The View From the Road

I guess it had to happen sooner or later. Being out on the road presently, it in general is all that is on the forefront of my thoughts for the blogsphere. However, it is not my goal to merely blog about life on the road, since this is merely a result of circumstance. I hope to give light to life and the enjoyable elements that arise from traveling the country on a tour bus with a band. As you can imagine, such circumstance can create just about anything but the mundane.

Here’s a quick run down of my typical show day:

Phone alarm goes off, I try to figure out what time it really is because I’m sleeping in what is basically a cocoon that which sunlight has no access. Once I figure out that I actually have to wake up I work my feet around to hang out of my third tier bunk and slowly make the descent to the floor. After all this, you can imagine the rest of the process of getting ready. (I will attempt to only point out those details of my typical day that are not altogether normal, as normal people might define them (getting dressed would be considered one of those normal things)).

The next step is usually figuring out how to get in contact with the promoter, which is followed by a walk through the venue. This process is one of getting all the questions that I know I am going to be asked eventually, answered before I am asked. If you are ever aspiring to be a tour manager, this is the greatest challenge you must learn to embrace. Questions come from everywhere, about anything, and it is best if you try to think of them before they get asked in order that you may sound smart and look like you know what you are doing. Unfortunately I just gave away a secret to my band who may possibly be reading this at some point. Oh well, I think they’ll like me anyways.

Post walkthrough my life gets a little bit easier, as I help set up where I can, I set up my production office (complete with a travel printer, a travel scanner, a travel case and what might be called a travel computer, my macbook. If you really didn’t believe that I love travel stuff, just ask anyone on tour with me and they will let you know the extent of my travel stuff love.)

Once the production stuff is set up we do our soundchecks, which is usually quite the process of listening to a number of different elements while realizing that the room I am in is aweful and the sound will completely change as soon as people show up. That’s a key for any aspiring FOH audio engineers, realize that you never get the same circumstance twice and that the human body is quite a ridiculous sound absorber.

Moving on, the rest of the day is replete with some rest, dealing with promoters, making sure everything goes on schedule, starting the show, then making sure it runs to schedule and eventually mixing for Sanctus. I’m moving a little quicker here so as to not drop those of you not all too interested in my daily routine.


Show ends, pack up begins, and soon we’re off to the next city. Whether there’s a hotel stop for showering, possibly a quick stop for food, eventually I end up back in the cocoon, ready to sleep, getting ready for another day.

I hope you enjoyed my day. Now I can move forward with plenty of other interesting topics that I need to dig up.

posted by Kurt A. @ 1:51 AM