ich bin ein auslander

Here’s the quick overview of my trip out with the goos last weekend…

caught a flight from LAX to Salt Lake City on Saturday… sat next to some really stinky guy, but it was a pretty quick flight, so no worries. Got into SLC right about 3pm; gave a quick call out to the tour manager to make sure they were at the Delta Center already; they were, so I caught a cab directly over there. Huge place, so I wandered around for a bit trying to find the back entrance where all the trucks would be parked… basically, I just nodded at the security guard and walked right in. Guess I looked the part enough… found the tour manager halfway down the ramp and got the holy all access laminate, and directions to the tour bus since there was no sound check that day and everyone was just hanging out.

Apparently my arrival was reason enough to start drinking, as I was greeted with a beer and a handshake… small talk, beers passed around, and we watched Mystery Science Theater 3000 on the satellite. Yes, the tour bus has a satellite dish, in addition to multiple DVD players, small screens in each bunk and the disco back room.

Much drinking ensued, along with the discovery that Rob had a pretty serious infection and the doctors were informing him he had to go to the hospital rather than play that night. I figured SLC and Phoenix near the end of the tour would have been a pretty low-key time to show up and hang out, and then this happens… after some pretty tense conversations, including calling the insurance company to sort out whether they could cancel the show or not, they decided to go ahead and do an abbreviated set with the bass tech playing the songs.. Rob was off to the hospital to get shot full of antibiotics, the tech was frantically trying to learn the songs while the rest of the band basically gave him a miserable time, trying on outfits for him to wear, telling him the wrong keys for songs, etc… it was pretty damn funny to watch.

Anyway, the show went off pretty well, and we had relatively good news from the hospital - he’d stay the night but most likely be good to go for Phoenix, which was two days off since they had a day off the next day. Since it was Salt Lake City, we pretty much just drank backstage rather than try to go find someplace… destroyed a few things, drew rather amusing (at least while drunk) portraits on the dry erase boards, and then headed off to the bus for the 12 hour drive to Phoenix…

..which meant more drinking. Everyone has iPods now, so rather than shuffling around CDs in the disco room of the bus, we just passed around the jack for the stereo and played iPod tracks to each other. The new radiohead was a big hit, and started off yet another download argument. Of course, now that they all have their own iPods the arguments aren’t quite as strong as they used to be.

At some point I passed out, and was woken up by a bottled water being thrown at me… it was 11 am and we were pulling into Phoenix. Wendy was set to meet us at the hotel, as there had been vague plans to drive out to Sedona or do other random things… didn’t end up working out, as tour attrition took its toll and people chose to sack out or read.

Wendy and I decided to go for it anyway, so we rented a car and did the 2 hour drive out to Sedona… walked around a bit, did the insane jeep tour where they drive you all over the rocks and canyons and bounce the shit out of you… then drove back into town for dinner.

Did dinner with the guys at Houstons, then stopped at a cool looking bar near the hotel… we were seated but they left the “reserved” cards on the table. I learned that they do this so if someone cooler than you shows up, they can kick you off the table. Pretty fucked up. They were removed pretty quickly, and the manager came over and started plying us with free drinks. Seems the more money you make, the less you need to spend it… we pretty much closed the place down, with the manager even offering to keep it open after hours for us… I think we disappointed him a few times… they were trying to run an ultra-cool lounge, with lots of electronica and bizarre german krautrock music, which I chatted with him about… but when he turned over the controls to us, we ended up putting in Earth, Wind and Fire…

So that ended that night. Up a little late the next day, but nothing a cup or five of coffee couldn’t handle. Went across the street to some mall for a nice lunch with a few of the guys, then back to the room to make the wonderfully late check out time the hotel gave us. 3pm. It’s good to be the king. Grabbed a shower, relaxed and packed up, then checked out and dragged all of our crap back onto the bus and drove over to the America West Center. Seems like all the large sports arenas are named after airlines now.

So we’re there around 3:30 or so… nothing really to do until stage time, which is 7:30. But guess what is right next door to the dressing room? A full-size practice court used by the Phoenix Suns before games. And it’s got a nice stereo system.. so in go a few CDs, out come the cameras, and a little exercise…

had some dinner at catering, which was pretty great, then a quick beer before the show began. I watched from the side of the stage, while Wendy ran around and took some great shots. Rob had flown down from SLC that afternoon so he made it to the Phoenix show and played…

After the show, more hanging out and drinking backstage. Some of the guys had some family and friends in Phoenix, so a little party backstage rather than the empty room like in SLC… went out to watch a few minutes of the Jovi but it was all too much for me. Backstage for a few drinks and a few minutes of CNN as we were taking over Baghdad..

then back to the bus to drive back to LA… even Wendy joined in the drinking this time, as we literally drank from Phoenix to LA, pulling in at 5 in the morning… grabbed a cab from their drop off point out in Universal City, and was home and in bed by 5am, Tuesday morning. A hell of a lot of fun.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2003 at 4:57 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.