Dave Rat - Roadies in the Midst

9am it is all about the repack. This morning will be my last real chance to get my bags prepared for the airline's durability test without unpacking in a parking lot.. I bought a bunch of liquid gifts that will get wrapped in my (clean) clothing for the ride home. One tour I had a bottle of flowery smelling oil explode in my bag and took out everything wearable I owned. The balsamic vinegars and olive oils have that potential.

The call sheet must have been transmitted telepathically today or maybe it is invisible, either way, I am guessing noon will be my call just like every show day has been for while.

And here she is, surprise! An oval shaped room with seats around the sides and a flat area in the middle:

Probably the most stressful and intense part of each show day from a production stand point is the load out. This is where all departments (hopefully) work in harmony sharing local crew, dropping in massive things from the sky and getting it all into trucks, quickly, safely and preferably without tempers flaring. In order to facilitate the smooth smooth flow of this massive orchestration, our stage manager, Tim, creates a highly technical 'load out sheet' for each show. These valuable sheets point out key issues while also highlighting things that happened the night before that need fixing. Here is Tim with Dortmund 2's load out sheet:

And a close up of the sheet. Everything on there has some relevance to our world and the load out sheets have become pretty much the daily tour newspaper:

Here are few shots of the show when all was black except band and video screens. For those of you that have not noticed, the video walls, like the Pods, move throughout the show and I have put up pics of a few different positions.

The songs for the night are not known until AK hand-writes the set list about an hour or less before show time, the lists are then copied and distributed. I usually get one. Then directly after the show, multitudes of fans repeatedly ask me for it. For awhile I was getting extra copies to give out, but the demand was endless and it turned into a feeding frenzy that seemed to cause more unhappiness than it created. Sometimes the persistence of people 'wanting' can be less than pleasant. Scott and I try and make it fun though. Maybe trading it for something of no value like first one to have a rubber band. Scott likes to trade for a joke or funny trick. Trading a set list for a smile seems fair enough!

Dave Rat

IWTHCYTTCATY!