Do you know that feeling of camping and waking at the crack of dawn to a misty crisp refreshing lung full of air? That beautiful scene that you sealed outside as you zipped your tent in the darkness the night before? Well, touring is nothing like that. At some point during the previous night I escaped the gig after the my little bit of the load out was done and shacked up in the bus while 12 trucks of gear was loaded. At some point the world I left behind when I closed that bus door disappeared and a brand new world showed up in the morning. Hello new day, hello new city, or parking lot as the case may be. No real fresh air, just a hot parking lot and the little game of 'find the entrance to the gig' that I get to play.

Today is laundry day. The way it works is I pack my little bag with all my dirty clothes, go find a numbered tag in the production case and pin it to my bag. Then I put $20 in an envelope and write my number on it and my name. At some point, later if all goes well, my bag and an envelope full of change will be in the production office. Also at some point later, someone will come on the bus after the gig and say "hey, Dave Rat, you know your laundry is still in the production office." I then go get my laundry.

Take a look at this picture and remember it clearly the next time you even consider complaining about what a pain it is to parallel park.

That is a 53 foot articulated trailer, down a ramp, fully loaded 4" from the wall.

Want to see some speakers before they get dressed?

Look at the cute little Rats on the backs of these V-Dosc boxes, 72 of them on this tour. Each box has two 15" speakers, four 7" speakers and two 2" horn drivers. If you multiply that all up it equals a lot.

Finally, oooooooh sexy Rat Subs! 44 dual 18" cabs out here. These babies can really move some air and are responsible for the breathless pauses in time when Flea hits the super low notes and the stage wings are actually aluminum grating over a block of 12 of these.

The 'showing my sound nerdy roots'

Dave Rat

WIARIWCFMW!