Dave Rat - Roadies in the Midst

Staying behind in New Orleans and leaving my fellow roadies to fend for themselves almost made me feel bad. What if they miss me and then they are sad roadies? But I quickly came to my senses when I did a mental scan of my workload, realized I get another night in New Orleans and I will trade a 900 mile bus ride for a 2 hour plane flight. I can party a bit, get my work done and still be ahead of the game if all goes well, hurray! First thing in the AM some blurry eyed computing caught me up enough on pressing matters just in time for phone call from Kevin, a long time friend of Scott the Lampi and owner of Sky Dive Nawlins. A plan was contrived to go on a mini-adventure to Dupre's for coffee and eat some weird looking square donuts. They call Benets (Benyays) and they are covered in enough sugary white powder to make Scareface drool. And hey look! It's Elissa and Susan that I met at the show last night. They had showed up with cool roadie gifts, we roadies love swag and here they are again! Coffee with friends in far away places, very cool.

Two Hurricane's (not the windy kind) and a wander later I came up with the brilliant idea of playing a little game of hide and go seek with one of my bags. First I HIDE my bag in the trunk of the cab, I wait for a half of an hour after I get dropped off and then go on a quest to SEEK out that long gone taxi and find my bag. Luckily I am a good FINDER and after a few phone calls I was very glad the well tipped cabbie came back for a visit.

**** Begin Meet a Roadie Campaign Episode 7 ****

From Day 89:

Bus and truck drivers have even earlier call times as they drive all night and sleep all day these nocturnal roadies, like riggers, hold our roadie lives and the safely of our beloved wires in the grip of a steering wheel. An interesting side note is that bus drivers typically get carted off to a hotel during the day, while truck drivers sleep in the micro hotel room located in the cab of their truck. Bus drivers drive straight through to deliver their roadie cargo while truck drivers do showers at truck stops that are setup for exactly that, along the way.

As captains of the land yachts in which we and the gear travel, driver roadies Magellan their way across the country with the greatest of ease. Capturing these mobile roadies in an un staged photo without the use of bait was nowhere near as difficult as I had anticipated. Where and how you might ask? Well, first I asked myself, what do all roadies eat, food of course and when do they eat, when they are hungry of course. When are driver roadies most hungry? Aha, after an overnight drive. So early I rose and creeped of the bus, sneaking into the venue and bingo! Catering is chock full of drivers, so quickly before the darted off I snap a pic:

A special surprise was to see all five crew bus drivers together.

I will introduce now the crew bus drivers and their bus numbers. In researching these particular roadies I was pleasantly surprised by how helpful each of the drivers were as supplying nicknames for the other roadie drivers. So kind of them to be so helpful! - From left to right meet Louie 5 (Scrubber), Doug 1 (Off road), The General (The Colonel), Brownie (Brutus) and Brian 2 (Mr. Clean).

And hey look! It's Louie in action!

In an unfortunate oversight, I sincerely apologize for overlooking the following two departments in the Day 89 tour staff overview - Merchandise and Versa-Tube. A bit late but not forgotten:

Our next introduction brings us the emperors of swag, the Santa Clause's of tour apparel, these multitasking roadie's are seen here accomplishing the amazing feat of eating and napping at the same time. Virtually a complete business venture in their own domain, they have their own truck with driver, Cal:

Not only do they carry all the tour swag sold at the gig, they also do all the inventory tracking and deal directly with the venue's to arrange all the details. Almost like a separate sub tour within the tour I present lead merch roadie Chris:

And his trusty partner and actually could be a Santa as a side job, Jim:

to be continued...