I don't really get bummed out when things beyond my control go wrong, but when I screw up it really drags me down. And though I mess up more than I wish I did, today was one of the former.

Once again we are off on a festival gig without our main gear set.

If you have ever traveled overseas, you most likely have experienced issues with your shaver, hair dryer or cell charger having either the wrong plug, wanting the wrong power or both, maybe you have even seen smoke billowing from something that used to be important. Imagine having a $500,000+ worth of highly complex audio gear that is all US powered and adaptored and going to various countries where every power connection wont fit and is just waiting to blow it up. Typically, when we have all the gear, we carry these giant transformers than make 'nice' power for our beloved gear to sip. On this gig, we had to adapt. Buckets they call them. Heavy things that make the poison Euro power drinkable by our US equipment.

Ten minutes to show time and something is wrong. The power supply for the mixing board reads 83 volts and is flashing in an excited way, both my racks which read 112 earlier now read 96 volts and dropping with each thump of the house music .Typically anything below 105 is scary. I suddenly feel a bit less than exuberant. Turns out the temporary power buckets we got for the day were too whimpy for the task, got hot and were dropping voltage. Low power = bad, especially if when the rig is up to full volume it takes power below the shutdown line. It took a few wind sprints and some spaghetti plugging to build a quick fix and adequate juice and start the gig. It was most annoying. I should have been more diligent in my power checkery, yet these buckets were sneaky, they were twice the physical size of what I have used previously and the connectors well exceeded my max power draw and came up fine earlier. Who would have known they would get sleepy at show time?

4am - bus bunk. Overnight to Ipswitch, is what the itinerary says. It also says something about a ferry. Wow, I love boat rides! Whee! Especially in the middle of night instead of sleeping on a show day. The deal works like this: Bus drives to dock, crew gets evicted, passported, questioned and hopefully released by immigration, crew gets back on bus, bus gets in line, waits for ferry, drives onto ferry, ferry-humans decide whether to cheer up crew by inviting us all to go sit in hard seats under florescent lights up in the top of the boat or to let crew miss out on fun and stay sleeping in cozy bus bunks down in boat belly.

Some amongst us get unhappy feelings sleeping in the internal chasm of an ocean going vessel. Maybe because these ferry things forget to float every so often.That would sure put a damper on load-in tomorrow if we spent the night trying to swim the English channel. I put my life in the hands of pilots, riggers and bus drivers on a regular basis so today my life is in the hands of a captain and I am hoping to float the ride in my cozy bus bunk

**** Roadie Sightings ****

Ok, it's 5am and Shhhhhhh! I spotted some roadies out and about, lets go take a look, be very quiet as they can be quite dangerous at this hour, especially when clustered in a small herd. And look! A rarely captured moment of roadies grazing near an immigration building:

Sometimes at sunrise roadies can be seen frolicking near their nest

And who wouldn't be frolicking with such stunning views such as these:

And then, much to my surprise, I spotted something totally unexpected, a roadie nest full of what I believe may be an undocumented species,

unfortunately they escaped before I was able to research further.

**** End Roadie Sightings ****

Good night.

DR

XOR!

And my new home sweet home:

A day of calm before the storm and it feels warm in the sunshine! Brussels is grandiose! Old, beautiful, French speaking with a Germanic feel. A place to remember to visit.

My head blocking your view of an amazing building a few blocks from the hotel:

Something about this place seemed to have such a laid back feel to it, Tracy ponders this thought.

There is a strange affinity prevalent here for selling little characters of all types, here were some of my personal favorites:

And after such a warm and wonderful day we could not help but dream of fun things to do. Here you can see Scott and Tracy have their hearts set on some sort of little vacation:

(Ha Ha! a little pay back to Scott! Tracy sorry, just consider it taking some friendly-fire)

DR

7:10am. Eyes burn, hope I have all my stuff, breakfast time and I can't wait, so hungry and look, Oh Boy!

A yummy delicious bowl of raw hamburger, I better get in there quick before the rest of the crew gets down here and gobbles it up.

I made a friend in the lobby and a tearfull goodbye

My chariot awaits me

Splatter and Scatter. Everyone is heading in different directions, some stay, some take a holiday and for me, it's all about home. Six roadies on my flight, everyone else I will see next run unless I don't.

And home. So nice to be home. Even though for some strange reason I now have to bend my laptop to get it to fire up, there is a puddle all the way down the street from a leaky sprinkler (can't wait to see the water bill), its 90 degrees in my house and the air conditioner seems to have decided to stop working and my mail box is jammed full of hopefully paid bills and I find myself wishing I had turned off all the lights in the house.

At least I have till a week from sunday to get it all together before I am off to Euro Leg 2!

And for a week, back to pretending to be a normal human until the next excursion out with Roadis in Midst.

Dave Rat

TRILICTSMICWTBHOAFHA!

Just a few photos of enjoying a beautiful day in a fabulous city:

The local health food:

Some forms of transportation are better than others:

Scott and I found picture of our people:

And hey! It's me by a statue!

Dave Rat

IWRWHWM!

6am and a blinding light mixed with a loud gritty scraping sound drags me awake. My window shades are pulled tight shut but the sunlight is relentless and unstoppable by practically clear window fabric provided. Had to open the window in the middle of the night to get some air, as my room was overheating. Sleeping was tough with the struggling sound of the air conditioner fighting a losing battle. I have a strong feeling that I am supposed to do something and have forgotten and that awful scraping noise is beer bottle filled trash cans following a human around, connected by his arm.

And magically, the mysterious call sheet has once again materialized near the door. 6:30am is the early call. I am going to do the 12 o-clock. 2pm is last call. By this time in the tour everyone knows which of the call times is theirs so the names of my fellow roadies no longer appear on the list.

My USB Wi-Fi adaptor has decided to travel separately from me. Maybe he joined my toiletry bag that decided to hang out in Barcelona and my blue tooth earpiece charger that jumped ship in some unknown location, come to think of it, I have not seen my Euro phone in a while either. The bright side, well at least my bag is a little lighter. Constantly dwindling possessions, I really don't sweat it unless it's a passport, cell phone or wallet.

**** Highlight of the Day - The Pods have found new homes! ****

Their new location seems to be an acceptable compromise. Hurray!

Big oval ring of a room. Hmmmmm, curved walls and circular usually means 'not good. Turns out the gig is just out the back door of the hotel after traversing a Spinal Tap maze of hallways. There are pieces of paper with arrows marked "RHCP Crew" pointing the way.

My Birthday! Aha, I knew there was something going on I was supposed to remember. Happy Birthday to me! Forty Four. I suddenly remember that have always wanted to celebrate my birthday in Dortmund, Germany.

Wow, today is mix in underwear day! The rule is: "If Scott or I receive undergarments for a gift at a gig, we must mix the show in said undergarments." I was very fortunate to be around when Scott received 3 pair of underwear, with matching vests, from the main man of the company that makes the Grand MA lighting board.

You can see my excitement

Nick the Fly was quite upset that there was not a forth pair for him. I offered to give share mine with him and swap mid show so he would feel better but he declined. He clearly has made a substantial self sacrifice.

Scott, MA, myself and Leif ready to rock!

And the for a look at the show:

**** Highlight of the Day - The band announces my birthday and thanks me for doing sound for them ****

Big smile and filled with a feeling of being appreciated. Thank you AK, JF, F and C for being wonderful friends and trusting me to bring the music you are so deeply passionate about to the people.

and then

**** Issue of the Day - Scott calls the follow spots on me ****

and there I stood there in my underwear lit like daylight in front of 18,000 people, (I had taken off the sporty vest) while the arena crowd cheered. Actually, that was a highlight as well!

Dave Rat

YIWCOYFAIWEI!

11:30am Overnight drive lands us in a parking lot of some unknown location, at least by us passenger humans. Turns out that our hotel is in the sports complex right next to a World Cup Football match (soccer to sepo's). Hmmm, the most important string of games for the most popular team sport on the planet earth. It's Sweden vs Trinidad and Tobago and the game is tonight. I heard something about 12 o-clock and streets blocked off. I guess we sent some sort of recognizance mission to check things out before driving the tour buses into a quagmire.

A 10 minute drive and a several block hike later, I was quite fortunate to capture some rare shots of roadies in their natural migration pattern from tour bus to hotel.

Roadies have been know to carry their nesting supplies for 10's and 10's of feet without complaining. Obviously in the situation below clearly shows that the maximum distance has been exceeded.

I like my current travel setup. Critical to package your world well. I use the 'push, pull and pack' setup that seems to be evolving as the preferred traveling human setup for those that have been around a while in the rock world. That is where you have a big bag with handles and wheel to pull, a smaller mid-sized bag that has a handle and wheels that you push (it is highly recommended that the mid-sized bag is carry-on-able for flights) and a third back pack bag that has your criticals. Criticals are passport, laptop, camera, toiletry bag, MP3 player, small hotel room speakers, maybe a spare shirt in case mustard attacks you in the airport, cell charger etc. It is quite an efficient system, allows you to walk for long distances with minimal stress and is typically good for 2 weeks of road life before laundry sets in. High visibility bags are a big plus for finding them both when they actually come to the same city with you on the plane and for describing them to the airport human when the bags decide to vacation on their own elsewhere, and you make the effort to get them back.

Two less successful bag setups I have tried in the past are:

The single-super-sized-28-day-no-laundry-washing-hockey-bag. Excellent for clothing supply, terrible to haul around (no wheels = bad) and the auto explode feature in every hotel room instantly merges clean and dirty clothes into one massive wad of mystery history. Carry bags that do not require a full unpack to find things!

The Super Light. Excellent for a few days but it gets really old, really fast, wearing the same shirt every 5 days and having to do laundry twice a week. I like to have a solid 2 weeks with me which means; pack for 18 days to account for doubles.

1pm - So, back to the Swedish. They are everywhere. Viking horns, face paint and a sea of yellow shirts and if I am not mistaken, they seem to have a strong affinity for drinking beer and having loud noises come out of the mouth part of the head.

These specimens were spotted quite a distance from the rest of the herd. Clearly they are taking advantage of a local watering hole.

Well, at least a lot them are staying in the same hotel that we are so we will not get lonely. Plus my room is 3 feet from the elevator so should never be far from my Swedish friends having a good time. This is gonna be fun! Too bad it's such a warm sunny day or actually would be grumpy about the inconveniences but actually I enjoy the unexpected, heading out for a walking adventure.

**** Highlight of the Day - Walking Dortmund and Iced coffee with friends ****

As simple as it is, just walking and wandering new places makes me happy and relaxed. Nothing like a good wander.

2 am - Eyes burn. I have over-computed. Hundreds of yellow stumbling drunk Sweeds (whom are no longer my friends) are finally dwindling into a sporadic horn blow and an occasional slurry yelp. Not the sound of a winning celebration below.

**** Issue of the Day - Less than optimum elevator location ****

They really put the elevator in a bad spot, I will try and recommend they move it farther from my room next time I stay here.

Good night.

Dave Rat

PTKML BPANFTILY!

Bercy (pronounced - Bear-See) is the venue in Paris with grass on the sides, been here many times.

And blammo! The moment I walk in , there it is!

**** Issue of the Day - The Pods ****

Hmmm, I wonder what is wrong with this picture? Lets see, Pods move up and down, Pods have plastic sheet around them, Pods infront of PA.

I instantly PIN'ed Grier, he informs me that I should stop crying. And after getting him all riled up, we laugh and he agrees to gonna keep them flown out and we worked on a more permanant solution for the next gig load in. OK, issue gone, all good.

Bercy inside is a big and kind of cool room

Today we are in the home town of L'Acoustics (makers of the V-Dosc speakers I use for the main PA). A couple of V-Humans came down. Arranged to head out to L'Acoustics with Nick and Lee in the AM. They are quite interested in the PA config we have out with us. I was hoping I would get factory support on the setup. L'Acoustics is very adamant about V-Dosc companies maintaining a high level of consistency. They also don't like companies setting up the rigs in less than optimum arrangements. Turns out the official response was "We have been waiting for someone to do what you are doing!" Awesome!

They also did some subwoofer modeling on the "sub canon' setup I came up with. I promise I will get into the layout soon for those of you interested.

The show went well but I mixed a louder that I was happy with. Once I got up there in volume I had a hard time coming back down without losing show momentum. Note to self - start a bit lower so I have somewhere to go.

Dave Rat

MBGMMH!

Unknown time. 10 minutes to get off the bus. Wow, Good Morning! Get all my stuff off the bus, need clothes, driver has my passport from the overnight border crossing. Ouch, incessant thumping sound. So far, today is not my favorite day.

+30 minutes, it is 1:20 pm and I just got done standing in a trailer shower, got burned by scalding water twice when I turned around and knocked the handle to full hot. I discovered turning clockwise was less painful as the cold water was less painful.

Fifteen years ago I would have gone exploring and been thrilled to see what's out there, right now well, I will force myself to check out front of house sound world.

The field

The Stage

5pm - Hotel. The vans got lost taking us from the gig to the hotel and turned a 10 minute drive into 45 minutes. Plus I fell asleep in the van and left my small camera on the seat. Oh well, it was acting up and erasing pictures anyway and you had to hit it to make it work half the time. I still have my big camera which is all good.

My room smells like dog hair but the place is brand new so it is most likely just a toxic chemical smell from some crazy paint or carpet. And hey look, my cell phone is not picking up a network it can use, I guess I am offline as well, at least it is saturday. Three hours till we head back to the gig and then 4 hours till show time. I have not eaten yet so I guess I better go seek out some food. I would normally order room service but it just happens to be closed from 3pm to 7pm unless you want a "snack." Good thing I am too tired to get riled up.

7:15pm The camera returns. Glad I put a Rat sticker on it. Plus we gained an hour last night night so now I have an extra 60 mins to enjoy, oh boy!

**** Highlight of the Day - Lunch by the water with Simon, Daniel and Nick. ****

Lisbon is absolutely beautiful! Simon is filling in for Chris while he is healing and can come back and join us. Simon is great and I miss Chris, I heard today that his jaw is broken as is his elbow and some teeth. AAAAArgh!

**** Issue of the Day - The whole day before lunch ****

I am mixing this tour on a Midas H3000 console. I tried to switch to digital but failed. I just could not get access to enough things simultaneously and would loose too many things I really rely upon when I mix. I will try and remember to cover the whole digi vs. analog debate some other day.

Off to do a rock show!

The shows are not as enjoyable for me when I do not have the bad ass touring PA. Here I had a large JBL Vertec system. The PA company took great care of us but I miss the V-Dosc, Vertec is loud but I have yet to figure out how to get the fidelity out of it, or into it as the case may be. The Ford Explorer of sound systems, they work, they run, they do well over bumps, everyone has one and they are not the most comfortable rides out there.

Dave Rat

TSOSYATMO!