The bus was parked yesterday in the hilly parking lot at the side of the Greek Theatre. The morning had fairly dense cloud cover but thin enough to still allow a lot of sunlight to pass through.
Playing show after show for years with a band is an odd thing for me. Often I don’t exactly remember a venue until I see the backstage area. The Greek Theatre backstage area is very well done. There is an outdoor VIP area, open to the sun, with couches, tables, and colorful lamps strung up high, with varied tones of bright red, green, yellow, and blue. They serve food and drinks to the VIP folks – guests of the band and venue. The dressing rooms are downstairs, and are comfortable, clean, and well-decorated.
On the road, many things make a difference. Good catering, clean, well-done rooms, all these seem to contribute to a general good morale in band and crew.
Another aspect of road life that contributes to good morale is maintaining a general positivity as much as possible. Too much negative talk or complaining is never good – it can spread. Honesty is necessary and good, yes, but only appropriately and in the right context. I think of any group, or organization, or family, or even a state or nation, as having connection like the parts of a body. If I feel negative on a given day, and I speak that out to the people around me, I am spreading it, like infection or disease. If I hold it and deal with it internally, deal with it in a way that is right and good, then I stop the disease from spreading.
This is true in other things as well. C.S. Lewis talked about human beings as ships sailing together. We often think it is no one else’s business what we do with our own ship. But, as he said, “There are two ways in which the human machine goes wrong. One is when human individuals drift apart from one another, or else collide with one another and do one another damage, by cheating or bullying. The other is when things go wrong inside the individual— when the different parts of him (his different faculties and desires and so on) either drift apart or interfere with one another . You can get the idea plain if you think of us as a fleet of ships sailing in formation. The voyage will be a success only, in the first place, if the ships do not collide and get in one another’s way; and, secondly, if each ship is seaworthy and has her engines in good order. As a matter of fact, you cannot have either of these two things without the other. If the ships keep on having collisions they will not remain seaworthy very long. On the other hand, if their steering gears are out of order they will not be able to avoid collisions. Or, if you like, think of humanity as a band playing a tune. To get a good result, you need two things. Each player’s individual instrument must be in tune and also each must come in at the right moment so as to combine with all the others.”
Sound check came and went. I did a quick restring of the main banjo. We are flying out this morning, and the bus I am on is staying out West, so I spent a bunch of time getting all my stuff together and putting it on the bus that is heading to Nashville. Sometimes I am a little overboard on bringing things to do – books, dvds, Vitamix blender, etcetera. In any case, it wasn’t too much stuff, and fit in half a bunk on the other bus. I marked all my bags of stuff with bright green duct tape and a big “RB” in Sharpie.
I met with Josh, my manager, and we talked about some aspects of what we’ll do with the new bluegrass instrumental record. After dinner, I was going through email and got really sleepy – that kind of sleepy that is nearly irresistible. I fell asleep until I heard Barry talking to Willie’s road manager and realized I had a half hour before the show, which gave me just enough time to make green tea, get dressed, and tune.
I always love leaving a tour on a high note, a show where I felt we played well, and last night was one of those nights. The air was cool and clear, the sound was good, the audience appreciative. We had to leave early to go to the airport hotel, so we missed most of Willie’s show.
I had family at the show, so I met with them for a too-brief visit immediately after our show. My stepsister Della, one of my Smartville family, was there, along with my cousins Jeff and Larry and their wives, and a second cousin, Crystal, and we talked right up until I had to go grab my things from the dressing room and head to the bus. It was a great night. I was glad to have Ethan there seeing family he hasn’t seen since he was a young boy. It’s been great having him along on this last leg of the tour.
I’m grateful for being able to play in AKUS all these years. Many thanks to Chris, Mike, Michael B, Alex P, Alex B, Sean, Garrett, and Gabe for their hard work and excellence in setup, sound, and management, and to Van, Paul, and Tom for getting us and our gear safely down the road. Thanks to Willie and all his band and crew and management for having us. And thanks to all of you who came out to the shows. We had a blast.
It’s time to switch gears. Today is the beginning of the end of the production of the bluegrass instrumental record. Ethan and I fly down to Ontario, California, where Eric Uglum will pick us up and take us to his house and studio to mix Hogan’s House of Music in the next four days. After that, my wife and daughter fly out and we visit my Dad and stepmom and siblings for a few days.
Playing show after show for years with a band is an odd thing for me. Often I don’t exactly remember a venue until I see the backstage area. The Greek Theatre backstage area is very well done. There is an outdoor VIP area, open to the sun, with couches, tables, and colorful lamps strung up high, with varied tones of bright red, green, yellow, and blue. They serve food and drinks to the VIP folks – guests of the band and venue. The dressing rooms are downstairs, and are comfortable, clean, and well-decorated.
On the road, many things make a difference. Good catering, clean, well-done rooms, all these seem to contribute to a general good morale in band and crew.
Another aspect of road life that contributes to good morale is maintaining a general positivity as much as possible. Too much negative talk or complaining is never good – it can spread. Honesty is necessary and good, yes, but only appropriately and in the right context. I think of any group, or organization, or family, or even a state or nation, as having connection like the parts of a body. If I feel negative on a given day, and I speak that out to the people around me, I am spreading it, like infection or disease. If I hold it and deal with it internally, deal with it in a way that is right and good, then I stop the disease from spreading.
This is true in other things as well. C.S. Lewis talked about human beings as ships sailing together. We often think it is no one else’s business what we do with our own ship. But, as he said, “There are two ways in which the human machine goes wrong. One is when human individuals drift apart from one another, or else collide with one another and do one another damage, by cheating or bullying. The other is when things go wrong inside the individual— when the different parts of him (his different faculties and desires and so on) either drift apart or interfere with one another . You can get the idea plain if you think of us as a fleet of ships sailing in formation. The voyage will be a success only, in the first place, if the ships do not collide and get in one another’s way; and, secondly, if each ship is seaworthy and has her engines in good order. As a matter of fact, you cannot have either of these two things without the other. If the ships keep on having collisions they will not remain seaworthy very long. On the other hand, if their steering gears are out of order they will not be able to avoid collisions. Or, if you like, think of humanity as a band playing a tune. To get a good result, you need two things. Each player’s individual instrument must be in tune and also each must come in at the right moment so as to combine with all the others.”
Sound check came and went. I did a quick restring of the main banjo. We are flying out this morning, and the bus I am on is staying out West, so I spent a bunch of time getting all my stuff together and putting it on the bus that is heading to Nashville. Sometimes I am a little overboard on bringing things to do – books, dvds, Vitamix blender, etcetera. In any case, it wasn’t too much stuff, and fit in half a bunk on the other bus. I marked all my bags of stuff with bright green duct tape and a big “RB” in Sharpie.
I met with Josh, my manager, and we talked about some aspects of what we’ll do with the new bluegrass instrumental record. After dinner, I was going through email and got really sleepy – that kind of sleepy that is nearly irresistible. I fell asleep until I heard Barry talking to Willie’s road manager and realized I had a half hour before the show, which gave me just enough time to make green tea, get dressed, and tune.
I always love leaving a tour on a high note, a show where I felt we played well, and last night was one of those nights. The air was cool and clear, the sound was good, the audience appreciative. We had to leave early to go to the airport hotel, so we missed most of Willie’s show.
I had family at the show, so I met with them for a too-brief visit immediately after our show. My stepsister Della, one of my Smartville family, was there, along with my cousins Jeff and Larry and their wives, and a second cousin, Crystal, and we talked right up until I had to go grab my things from the dressing room and head to the bus. It was a great night. I was glad to have Ethan there seeing family he hasn’t seen since he was a young boy. It’s been great having him along on this last leg of the tour.
I’m grateful for being able to play in AKUS all these years. Many thanks to Chris, Mike, Michael B, Alex P, Alex B, Sean, Garrett, and Gabe for their hard work and excellence in setup, sound, and management, and to Van, Paul, and Tom for getting us and our gear safely down the road. Thanks to Willie and all his band and crew and management for having us. And thanks to all of you who came out to the shows. We had a blast.
It’s time to switch gears. Today is the beginning of the end of the production of the bluegrass instrumental record. Ethan and I fly down to Ontario, California, where Eric Uglum will pick us up and take us to his house and studio to mix Hogan’s House of Music in the next four days. After that, my wife and daughter fly out and we visit my Dad and stepmom and siblings for a few days.