The phone rings at 4.30am, exploding any vaguely triumphant rock-star dreams about the previous night’s concert. It’s the hotel wake-up call, signaling a mad 15-minute dash to leave the hotel: I take a very hot shower to rouse myself into semi-consciousness; clothes are flung, crumpled into an already over-stuffed suitcase; piles of accumulated quarters, nickels and pennies are consolidated and gathered up (this detritus become New York Times money at the airport); there is a momentary freak-out while my passport is located; I hesitate, shocked by the image before me, in front of the mirror.
So begins a typical travel day on tour with 8bb. In contrast to the hectic, almost manic artistic, psychological and physical intensity of a concert day, a travel day consists of 12-ish hours of semi-comatose sleep-walking as we make our way from from hotel to airport, airport to hotel. I never feel like I truly wake up until we arrive, mostly intact at our destination’s closest brewpub.
We reach the airport at least two hours in advance of a 9am-ish flight. With an 8-person tour contingent plus the Phot’s cello, we are able to check eighteen items, each weighing no more than 50 pounds. This is where the repacking begins. The Phot uses his natural authority to commandeer a baggage check station, and we weigh, re-weigh, remove items, replace items, create a pile of bizarre objects to be repacked (a car’s metal spring, a bag of whole grains, gaffe tape) and corral a cluster of bags weighing exactly 50 pounds (no more, no less) into a designated “correct weight” zone.
On our most recent tour I took as carry-on, in addition to my flute bag, the vibraphone bars. These pack snugly into a small (10 cubic inches) case, but weigh as much as solid lead. Getting 60 heavy, sharp, metallic bars through security proved an entertaining exercise. This was the pattern:
“Bag check! Wow, these are heavy, what have you got in here? A musical instrument you say - I’ve never seen anything like this before… A “vibra”-what?! I don’t know about this, let me get my supervisor.”
Security folks do genuinely seem baffled in the face of most musical instruments, but luckily the guards appear to innately trust my adorable, “English lite” accent. It always has struck me as odd that Americans would accept at face value an accent that sounds for all the world like the one that subjected their ancestors to so many hardships. No matter, I was always waved through with a clueless shrug.
Before heading off to eat, 8bb members create a gargantuan pile of carry-ons at the boarding gate: cello, violin, viola, “the log” (the Mac’s axes), flutes, vibe bars, personal bags, tubes full of tar-paper (um…). Then there is the rush to find eggs. Whether scrambled, poached, fried or in an omelette, it matters not; our goal is simple: locate comfort foot, high in fat, salt and sugar.
I remember very few plane flights. This is not because I sleep particularly well, but because I spend the entire flight in a weird, zombie-like state of half-sleeping, half-waking inattentiveness. I am unable to read, to engage in conversation, to listen to podcasts, to do anything but sit, slumped awkwardly in my tiny seat, watching the pretty white fluffy things outside the window.
At our destination airport we play the “which bag has been lost by the airline this time” game, before arguing about who will retrieve the rental cars, whether we should all go to the rental car station (which, despite always being described as “in terminal” can be as far as 10 miles away), and whether the bags should be kept in one member’s hotel room or checked at the front desk. It can take us up to two hours to leave the airport.
After getting lost on unfamiliar highways (”Did that say 151N/295S? We are supposed to take 295N/195W, but I don’t see any sign!”; “Google Maps says take Exit 5!”; “But the exits aren’t bloody numbered!”) we locate the nearest Starbucks, do a quick search on Beer Advocate and head off to the nearest brewpub.
Below, curbside before a flight out of John Wayne Airport (Orange County) with all of our touring luggage:
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