Three in a row.
Those words don’t sound all that daunting to the average
person, but when you string them together and present them to a musician or member
of the road crew, you’ll be met with a muffled groan and a resigned look of
quiet defeat.
Three in a row means exactly what you think it means.
Three shows on three consecutive nights, with some long bus
rides in between.
I realize that normal people work 5 days in a row, and
whining about 3 just sounds obnoxious, but unless you’re a long-haul truck driver,
airline pilot, or flight attendant, you don’t have to deal with all the
mileage.
For whatever reason, mileage takes it out of you, even if
you’re a pampered rock star who really only works two hours a day.
But I have it easy compared to those guys.
I can hide out in a dressing room or office and fake my way
through the day even though I’m exhausted.
The guys in the band have to get up on stage in front of a
few thousand people who paid good money to hear them play and sing
proficiently.
They also have hair, and I would imagine that it takes some
wrangling to get that looking properly presentable.
This can all be difficult on day three.
But things went pretty smooth throughout the day, and by the
time the night was over only two things really stood out.
#1
The band was a few songs into the set when I left the venue
and went out to the elevators.
Three people were standing there waiting, and one of them
said to me, “You look important”.
I’m fairly certain that was the first time in my life those
words have ever been spoken to me.
I’m not surprised to hear the first two words of that
sentence, but they’re usually followed by one of the following three:
Tired.
Confused.
Lost.
But apparently I can now add important to the list, and I’m
guessing it’s because I had a laminate around my neck and a radio strapped to
my waist.
Then again, everyone on the crew has a laminate and a radio,
and the only difference between them and me is that I sometimes wear a collared
shirt.
Or maybe I carry myself with a certain air of authority and
esteem that I wasn’t aware of, because clearly that dude picked up in it.
Anyway, I went about my important business and eventually
made it back in time to catch the end of the show.
Nothing else out of the ordinary happened until after the
show was over.
#2
The band had taken their bows, thrown guitar picks and drum
sticks into the crowd, and were walking off.
Then Jerry stopped abruptly, went to the mic, and said one
word.
“Steelers!”
Which isn’t the thing to say when you’re 70 miles from
Philadelphia Eagles country.
So the boos rained down, and Jerry walked off with a huge
grin on his face.
Proving once again that even if you have a beautiful 90
minute dinner party at your house and Jerry behaves like a gentleman all night,
the odds are still good that he’s gonna pee on the drapes on his way out the
door.
And with incident #2 in the books, our third of three in a
row was over.
Now I just have to figure out what an important person does
on a day off…