The Weekly Croissant: Tour Diary

Fire Alarms / Mysterious Hospitality Items/ Bad Alternators/ Good Shows

Wednesday

6:30 AM: Alarm. Begrudgingly look at phone to see election results. Overwhelming dread. Wish I was still asleep

8:00 AM: Load van, Steve and I drop George at the airport and depart for our gig in Virginia

4:00 PM: Soundcheck in Blacksburg. Snap my G string in the last few minutes of checking. Insert G string joke here. This G string has been haunting me; It has broken 3 times in the last month or so…

5:30 PM: Guitar is restrung, extra strings acquired at a local music shop. Man at the store is from New York, very chatty and kind.

6:00 PM: Finally at the hotel, impatient to fit in a jog in before the show, but nobody is at the check-in desk

6:15 PM: The hotel clerk shows up and apologizes for the wait. The following conversation ensues:

Clerk: Can I have your phone number, in case of a fire?

Me: Sure, but… don’t you have, like, a fire alarm? 

Clerk: We do, but, you know, the alarms don’t always work.  Most people in fires die anyway because the alarms don’t go off…they don’t change the batteries and they don’t test them… you know

Me: OK, but this is a hotel, so you check your fire alarms right? Like, you check the batteries and do tests? 

Clerk: I mean…. yeahhhh

Me: …..

Clerk: …

6:30 PM: Running around the campus of Virginia Tech. It’s beautiful, and I’m trying to feel normal but keep remembering the mass shooting that happened here when I was in high school.

7:30 pm: Back at hotel, shoveling down dinner. Frantic call from the venue, their merch volunteers need my pricing and square login!!!

For our convenience at the hotel… Crack pipe? Weird tampon?

7:45 pm: At the venue trying to explain merch to an army of vacant-eyed teenagers who are definitely required to be here for a class about….merch sales?

10:00 pm: show went great. Back at the merch table where the children have been replaced by one man whose hands are visibly shaking as he tries to swipe cards in the unruly square reader. I jump in and the line starts moving again.

11:30 pm: In bed, exhausted.

Thursday

7:00 am: early alarm for departure to Philly

8:15 AM: bagel stop - a random map search and a win

2:30 PM: coffee stop in Baltimore. A fro yo shop. Coffee is awful. Fail.

2:45: back on the road and the van is acting up, Steve says should we go into this tunnel?

…The van is lurching and sputtering and the battery light is on

…Turn off! I say, just before we enter the underwater one-way no shoulder tunnel

2:40 pm: We roll into an AutoZone. The van has done this before…it’s giving Lafayette Indiana. We are both fairly certain it’s the alternator.

2:50 pm: After consulting and then immediately giving up on AutoZone, I call AAA and my managers who live in Baltimore.

3:45: Feeling like a GD pro. Melissa my manager has swapped me out a car. The van has been towed to a nearby garage. We are back on the road and going to make the end of the Leif Vollebekk soundcheck (my only chance to rehearse my harmony parts)

5:00 PM: We arrive at Union Transfer in Philly. The LV soundcheck is in full swing. The band is unhappy and the monitor engineer is having a tantrum. I stand at my mic and try not to add to the chaos

5:15 PM: The monitor engineer yells “Fine! We will start over!” And dramatically pulls all the faders down to zero with his arm. Everyone stares open-mouthed as he says “Kick drum please”

6:20 PM: Quick stage turnover and Steve and I get our opener soundcheck in. It goes smoothly, thank god.

7:15 PM: Steve goes out to grab tacos while I frantically fix my hair and makeup.

8:00 PM: On stage. Beautiful crowd

9:00 PM Leif Set. Singing “Moondog” and “Southern Star” live for hundreds of people

10/10 Recommend. Would do it all again!