The Gathering is like animal critters arriving at the watering hole. Waves of familiar and soon to be familiar humans flood the hotel as each arriving flight dumps off new ones. Production is first to arrive. I sat next to Big Daddy, whom I met 20 years ago. We had a blast catching up on old times and Danzig/Soundgarden tour in 1990 we did together and it remains a constant source of funny stories. Who would have known that Danzig's body guard, Jessie James, would end up on TV married to Sandra Bollock!

I find 'our people' just wandering the street, searching for food or beer or just wandering then clustering and wandering some more. It is our new stomping ground. Lighting, riggers, sound and tomorrow we get backline techs. When all is said and done, there will be 50 or so crew from across the globe all here for a common goal. To build us a killer rock show!

Barcelona seems to have an amazingly high quantity of street artists that stand really still and each has some unique presentation, some are better than others.

These guys ride bikes with their skeleton friends

and some cowboys

and my favorite was just too realistic to even describe

  I almost failed the jet lag battle and passed out, fortunately to be saved by a phone call. Never nap on a trans-euro flight landing day. Stay awake till after midnight at least, or you will pay the price for many days.

Let's see, I am 43, we tour this year, we tour next year, if past experience is an indicator, I will be 45 when the tour ends and my daughters will be 12. Hmmm, that is kind of scary. Yikes!

This where I fall into "why am I here mode." Well, it's not out of need, Rat world is doing well and the challenges there keep me happy and financially stable enough. More cities? I have seen enough, I have a back log list of places I want to revisit, when I am not working, too long to ever fulfill. Ultimately the answer of whether the adventure is worth the sacrifice will unravel itself with my personal happiness as the barometer.

I do know that these are 'my people.' I feel a welcome-ness and depth of belonging that I experience in no other group of humans. At home, I enjoy a relatively solitary existence. Family, a few friends I see on occasion, peaceful, focused and wrapped in projects that I seek out to solve. But here I feel like I glow. I know this world. Strangely familiar cities and wires and knobs and endless streams of puzzles that appear in the form of broken things need fixing. The creation of sonic landscapes. This is the forest I know like the back of my hand and these are my people.

Dave Rat