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Day 197 - Dec 6 - Vienna Show 1

Posted by Dave Rat on

Good morning sunshine! Europe likes to rock the free breakfast included with the hotel and I try and get down there in time whenever I remember and face the morning choice between greasy eggy meaty world and fruity crunchy yogurt world. Strange how once I pattern with one, the conversion is tough to the other though I always feel better when I follow the tree-hugger option.

And I ran back up to my room really quick to find

which made me ponder the fluid malleable nature of religious beliefs. So in my analytical sarcastic way, lets take a gander in that direction. First, we few amongst us have not played that game where all the kids get in a circle and you whisper something in the ear of the next person. Then, by the time that something makes it around the circle it has been embellished and altered to the point where it has little if anything to do with the original words. We know this, we can show this, this is not in question and is readily demonstratable indicating that humans in general tend not to be very good carriers of accurate information. Now have a story pass from ear to ear and hand to pen for thousands of years. What are the odds that it bears much resemblance to the original? What are the odds that over time various entities have injected bits of self serving spin? Hmmm. Just a thought to consider and in a reversal, I have heard that the red jolly Santa we have today was an invention of Coco Cola corporation. Being the curious roadie I am, I decided to take a quick look and found that to be at least debatable and Santa may be a bit more authentic in that his current form was most likely created by a greeting card company. I feel much better now.

http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/santa.asp

And check out this cool place that Santa's people built

I wonder what this piratey looking guy has to say

I enjoy the contrasts in life. They seem to illuminate the betwixt and unbeknownst to me, candidly Scotty took this picture of two humans focused on what currently was of importance to them. Each immersed in separate realities yet separated by just a few feet.

Uh oh, it's getting late, better head over to the rock show. When we have really long bus drives, they bring in a 'double driver' for each bus. That way they can tag team and take turns driving to get us to our next city. Well, I would like you to meet bus 2's double driver and temporary pirate

We call him Nasty B'stard. Why do we call him that you may well ask? Well, not really sure, we just do.

The contemplating changing my name to the sound of pirate saying 'Aaargh,'

Dave Rat

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HALLDORSON on :

Six Grammy Nominations! Hey! Good old Nasty B'stard also gets some ink in Neal Peart's new book, 'Roadshow': "The new driver was a short, wiry-looking Englishman with a shaved head, topknot, Fu-Manchu mustache, and tattoos, and he introduced himself as 'Nasty.' ...Despite all that appent "badness," though, Nasty was actually a friendly and cheerful man..."

Monique on :

Mmm...yummy fruity goodness. Which reminds me I must cut up my watermellon tonight. Sheesh--I thought your watch was big! DB's is monstrous! I see he's been assimilated.

Monique on :

...and by "DB" I mean "NB" WHOOPS! haha :D

Ilan Rabbi on :

Hi Dave, I met you on December 12 at the RHCP last show in Stockholm. I gave you a cd of the Israeli rock band "The Unsoundable". I would love to know what happend to it and to hear comments about it. Rock on! Ilan

Iva on :

You did not write anything about the show itself...and, well, thought I'd finally say this. I apologise if I may seem cocky, but after the nice things I've heard about you from my friend who was backstage in Milano, as your guest, I thought it would be different. Another friend (whose name is Roberta and who is an Italian fan who takes killer photos of the band, if that matters...) told me to go to your Mix Pult and ask for a setlist, as you always have spare ones. I got there and politely said "Excuse me, Mr Rat" three times and you were looking at me as if I stunk or something. If you don't remember, I was a shortish girl in a chequered green/white/black shirt and black trousers...and, well, I don't look like a groupie or miss world or anything. Then, one of your nice assistants, the younger one, apologised to me and he was really, really sad to tell me that you don't have a spare one anymore. He even offered me to save one the next day, but that day I was dragged away by some people and I had no chance to come to the mix pult, so I apologise to him for not having come, in case he'd really kept one for me. Either way, I do not understand why you behaved that to me, as I doubt you had a superiority complex or something like that. I travelled 12 hours on a train from Belgrade to Vienna to see the band for the first and second time and, apart from having had the camera confiscated by the Stadthalle people, this is my other sad memory. If I annoyed you and you decided to ignore me, I apologise. But this will remain a sad memory. Also, the place Santa's people built is called Stephansdom and it's one of the most beautiful cathedrals on the continent. I had visited it on the same day and enjoyed visiting it very much. http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/4416/img62569gr.jpg

Dave Rat on :

Hello Iva, Yes, I only occasionally write about the shows as the focus and purpose of this blog it to share what it is like to work in the world of touring as a roadie. To be honest, I have no recollection of seeing you. I do try to get extra set lists and hand them out, Some shows I get no requests and some shows I get so many that I run out very quickly. Come on Iva! What the heck? I would have loved to give you a setlist, I did not hear you or see you, that is not on purpose, and one of the techs offered to save one, very cool! I love that and that is the way we try to treat everyone we can! That is unfortunate that you did not show up as we do a pretty good job of saving setlists when we promise to do so. Only like 20 or 30 people out of 15,000 get a set list each night. Tell Roberta hello and You came to two awesome Peppers shows and somehow came up with 'sad'? Not sad, happy!!!

Iva on :

Uh-oh, it's happening again: I made up a whole story about such a simple situation with a simple explanation that you probably did not notice me...and it's not the first time I thought people had something against me. I apologise for having been wrong. At the same time, this is a huge relief to me:) It was my first ever real rock show as I'm picky about I like and I guess I am not familiar with how hard it is to keep attention of everything and everyone. As for the shows: of course I am happy, the day of the second show is officially the best day of my life and by everything I have done, I've proven that it IS possible to live in an almost isolated country ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbia ) and travel somewhere else to see the only band and the only guitar player I'd ever travel for. I would not exchange that feeling of happiness that has been with me for almost two months for anything else in the world. And I'll say hi to Roberta the next time we speak (which is way too often, as she's like an older sister to me), no worries. Once again, you've just vanished my paranoia and I feel much, much better and I'm definitely happy:):):)

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