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Day 97 - Sacramento - Show Day

How about something new today? Come have a seat at Chad's drum kit and check out the view:

PJ PA System, Boston

and lookie here, nothing like a sweet romantic love song to bring joy to the heart and tonight Freaky Styley is very much one my old school favorites!

PJ PA System, Boston

**** Roadie Insight ****

As glamorous as the roadie life of pushing cases and bus riding marathons appears to be to the outsider, believe it or not, it truly is a bed of roses, thorns and all. As quickly as the euphoria of knowing your 1 1/2 years will be spent in many elsewhere's, the swirling 'drink me' temptation of all the pretty colored alcohol bottles, seductive wine labels and selection of local temptresses can all to easily become the preferred evening ritual. Load in, rock, load out, party, bus ride, TV, sleep, repeat. Days can easily slump into sleeping in, eating and meeting for drinks again. Add in some strip clubs, extraneous drugs, power dating and burn a few all nighters and bingo, you have the recipe for a generic rock roadie. That of course is the easy path and has its assets in the short term and prices in the long. Getting out of bed early to workout in the hotel gym or booking a car rental over the noise of the gig for a snow boarding trip on the next day off is where the true challenges lie. The obstacles of orchestrating scuba diving and fishing trips range from predicting bus arrival times to finding out that your alleged day off has morphed into a loading in day early.

For the roadie me, I have to have projects above and beyond the adventure of mixing the best rock show I can mix or at least I need drink enough to forget that I need them. Sober and project-less I spiral into boredom and the worst thing of all happens, I become no fun to be around or maybe too much fun depending. As you may have well guessed, one of my projects for this tour is sharing the adventure of this tour. Another ongoing one is is always my passion for Rat Sound and the livelihood of all those that make it what it is. Next I am going to learn to fly fish so I bought a fly fishing rod and Scott the Lampi is going to teach me how.

I guess because the product I am hired to create is so intangibly fleeting and the sound of the show vaporizes into a diffused set of opinions whisked away as the audience leaves. The only remnants that remain from something that was just hours ago phenomenal, is just some distilled words by a few reviewers sharing their own microcosm of the experience. As meaningful as they are meaningless and I have finished all to many tours with nothing to show for it but a wad of cash, a monster hangover, some ringing ears and offers for another tour.

And so spawns the playfully absurd and roadies desire to frolic and where better to frolic than in a grassy field? Non-where better there is. And so was realized Nick the Fly's dream of the FOH micro lawn. In October 2003 it became a reality and though short lived, on the west coast part of the Pepper's By the Way tour, we purchased and toured with several square yards of Marathon sod. To this day I still reminisce of the cool sensation mixing barefoot upon the lovely green.

PJ PA System, Boston

PJ PA System, Boston

**** End Roadie Insight ****

The appreciative of my world,

Dave Rat

ICWTSMGAMHC!

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Andy on :

Yeah, that definitely tops FOH carpet, and Launch Pads. You guys win! :-D

curly on :

I have some astro turf that i stole froma local high school. Although a bit rough. Still would be better than watering daily!

Dave Rat on :

Surely you jest as I would be as excited about standing on plastic grass as I would be about dating a plastic woman. Though both the real woman and real grass require a bit of watering now nd again.

Bob Howes on :

I guess you'd know your "tour turf" was a successful experiment if you had to add a lawn mower to the sound inventory! Bob

Rob Burgess on :

Maybe not a lawnmower, maybe a sheep would do. If using astroturf then maybe an inflatable sheep would fit the bill :-)

Kirk on :

Has anyone tried fieldturf? Might be kinda hard to implement, but not any harder than grass. It's the stuff all of the football fields are going to. It's very spongy, stays green, and insects don't eat it. It'd be like a Midas for your feet.

70-502 on :

Hey Dave, thanks for the pics of John's amp heads. What is the little cable for from the top right input to the bottom left input on the Marshall Major

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