Dave Rat - Roadies in the Midst

Perhaps you may be beginning to notice a distinct connection between being a roadie and spending a considerable amount of time subjected to being transported around the world? Today was no exception. Not unlike the plight of Guilligan and his isle, often something intended to be a short story can evolve into a meandering novel of epic proportions. The original delayed flight was of little consequence but when the guy in the work-suit carried the boxy thing with wires hanging from it out of the airplane cockpit, our roadie intuition kicked in and we collectively agreed that there is a high probability that is not dandy. Then add in the fact that there were free tequila shots between the airport bars at various locations peppering our path on our way to board the earlier plane in Mexico combined with the "arrive two hours early, plus a spare hour, plus a spare spare 1/2 hour, when traveling with large roadie herds," and you end up with a pack of 50 well tuned roadies with a lot of momentum and no where to go except the bar of course.

That is the part where the fun begins. Roadies are funny, usually unless they are whining and bitching in which case they are annoying, unless they are really good at whining and bitching and that if done right can be funny again. Well, being the well rounded crew that we are, we have all bases covered. Roadies are also very curious so naturally when they took the that little thing out of the plane, I headed straight over to see what was going on. Look! they actually let me into the cockpit to take a picture of me posing below the place where they took out that boxy thing with wires.

It turned out that the plane was not really that broken and the only problem was just a small issue with engines being overly stubborn and refusing to start up. Unfortunately though, without their windy thrust, we were locked into a top speed of zero miles per hour, so they decided to fix it with half of our roadies sitting on the tiny jet plane. So they shut down the power and impressed everyone by by showing off how quickly a sealed tube of humans reaches a high level of swelter. While many roadies puzzlingly endured the thermal bummout, the highlight was when roadie Scott came dashing out covered in sweat as if being chased by a critter with claws. Here we can see Scotty after he has has located a cooling breeze.

Finally after much waiting they cleared the plane and instructed us o return in half an hour, so Scott and I wander off seeking food only to get a text message 20 minutes later, mid meal that the plane was fully boarded and they are fitting to leave without us. At that point Scott and I decided it was a wonderful time to get some excessive and demonstrate our synchronized wind sprinting skills to 'da plane, da plane!'

It is time for another comic

**** Scott the Lampi Comic #4 ****

**** End Scott the Lampi Comic #4 ****

Oklahoma City tomorrow. Last show of the official US tour. Yep, there may be some scattered state-side dates and usually is if history is an indicator but no real gigs on the books other than Coachella, that I know of. At least we have a little break coming up and when I say little, I mean little. Monday OK City, tues fly home, wednesday is relax, holiday, vacation day and most of the crew flies to Japan on thursday. Fortunately, the backline techs and I are not needed yet so we get twice as long at home and leave on the following day, this Friday.

Now, it is time for me curiosity myself into some other direction and offer farewell till tomorrow or the next day or some day soon to come, but most likely tomorrow.

Dave Rat