Dave Rat - Roadies in the Midst

Never ever forget that you never ever truly know what will happen next. "Highly probable' is as good as you can get with future predictions. I must admit that I was over prepared thermally for yesterdays southern California weather in Oklahoma. Who would have knew? After reading about thousands of stranded freezing cows, I figured I was gonna freeze too heading out to middle America. Funny thing was that there was all this silly talk of a cold front coming in. Who would have knew? Definitely not I, said the sound guy. Anyway, last night at the hotel bar I was hanging with rigger Fletch and he is drinking wine and has a porcelain plate with a picture of a deer on it with him, of course. Don't we all carry them. Actually we don't so asked and was quite pleased to be let in on a bit of roadie antics. Turns out that the tour riggers have this deer plate that is bestowed upon whomever amongst them screws up, comes in late or forgets something. Fletch earned it by being late for working out in the hotel gym, or maybe he forgot. Either way, I love the roadie games.

So what was warm and wonderful weather last night has taken a bit of turn.

They call the stuff "freezing rain." It is not snow, it is not hail and it may have been rain but it aint no more. Little round ice balls.

And wow! Are they slippery! Fun to watch my friends get caught off guard. It is like walking on mini ball bearings. And what could be a more perfect compliment to the freezing rain than the implementation of our tiki theme! Thank you Ratketeers, this is all good! Here we can see roadie Scott proudly showing off his decorating accomplishments.

Of course, I head straight for the grass skirt

It is customary for the major vendors on a tour put together some sort of swag for the roadies and band. At Rat Sound we try and do something as unique as we can, so my big project for the day is to give out the big delivery of our newest Rat Swag, shoes! I wonder when the last time a sound company made shoes was?

The roadies seemed quite pleased all in all and quite a bit more pleased that the roadies seemed to be when they heard that we are now in holding pattern. We are all good, show is all set, it's cold outside but warm in here and all is good except for one little problem. The good news is we can play the gig, the bad news is that the audience will be unable to attend the show due to transportation issues. It turns out that the little ice balls and sheets of slippery ice underneath are fine for cars that are moving but not so fine for cars that are attempting to accelerate or stop.

Pack it up roadies,

The show is cancelled, we are gonna try to drive to Dallas. Hmmmm, no one can drive, too slippery here so we are gonna drive elsewhere. Hmmmm, something is fishy.

The putting my life in the hands of the bus driver on icy night roads,

Dave Rat