kz1000ps
Senior Member
- Joined
- May 28, 2006
- Messages
- 8,720
- Reaction score
- 9,498
I've posted these elsewhere and meant to share them here but apparently I never did? These are from a summer tour my rock band did in 2016 that spanned 48 shows in 30 states (plus Toronto) and had us driving through nearly all of the continental 48 states. It was a dizzying and highly positive three months on the road nonstop, seeing virtually every nook and cranny of the country including both the glamorous stuff such as national parks and major skylines as well as the more mundane side of American life such as lots of random Walmarts in the most random and unheralded of places.
Some notes:
--Since we were driving a big diesel RV, we got to know what it's like fueling up at the huge truck stops... places with the name of Pilot, Love's, Flying J, and how it feels to sit eye to eye with the big boy truckers, how it feels to sleep at truck stops, how it feels to shower at truck stops, etc etc.
--Being in a touring band that is "playing Chicago tonight" you'd think we'd get to enjoy the locale, but that usually doesn't happen since A) we had to be at the venue by 2pm for load-in/soundcheck (and load-out done by somewhere around midnight) and B) we were driving ourselves and oftentimes had a 6+ hour drive to get to the next city (means we are driving through the night and/or morning) and C) a lot of time the venues are not in a perfect downtown location so we couldn't just walk out the building and be in the thick of things. Maybe around dinnertime we'd be able to wander, but usually that was it.
--The tour began in Washington State and ended in Vegas, so that meant we New Yorkers had to cross the country two times just to begin and end the tour. All told, we logged in roughly 26,000 miles in 80 days, or 325 miles/day.
--And finally, now that this is four years in the past (the band's been inactive for almost three) I can reflect and say that when it comes to life on the road, the highs are super high and the lows are low. This was the biggest tour we ever did, both in duration and in quality of production, and by this point we had done enough touring to know how to pace ourselves through the grind of each day. But even then it's hard to explain just what it's like to be moving from city to city, day after day after day after day... sort of like going on a big vacation with your family where every single day has a packed itinerary and it goes on for seven weeks longer than it has any sane right to
Alright so we start the journey by making our way across the Great Plains, in this case somewhere along I-90 in South Dakota
Into Montana
Washington and Oregon along the Columbia River
Oregon
Mount Shasta in CA
Bay Area
Carmel
San Luis Reservoir in Merced County drawn down due to drought
Santa Barbara
not Santa Barbara
Some notes:
--Since we were driving a big diesel RV, we got to know what it's like fueling up at the huge truck stops... places with the name of Pilot, Love's, Flying J, and how it feels to sit eye to eye with the big boy truckers, how it feels to sleep at truck stops, how it feels to shower at truck stops, etc etc.
--Being in a touring band that is "playing Chicago tonight" you'd think we'd get to enjoy the locale, but that usually doesn't happen since A) we had to be at the venue by 2pm for load-in/soundcheck (and load-out done by somewhere around midnight) and B) we were driving ourselves and oftentimes had a 6+ hour drive to get to the next city (means we are driving through the night and/or morning) and C) a lot of time the venues are not in a perfect downtown location so we couldn't just walk out the building and be in the thick of things. Maybe around dinnertime we'd be able to wander, but usually that was it.
--The tour began in Washington State and ended in Vegas, so that meant we New Yorkers had to cross the country two times just to begin and end the tour. All told, we logged in roughly 26,000 miles in 80 days, or 325 miles/day.
--And finally, now that this is four years in the past (the band's been inactive for almost three) I can reflect and say that when it comes to life on the road, the highs are super high and the lows are low. This was the biggest tour we ever did, both in duration and in quality of production, and by this point we had done enough touring to know how to pace ourselves through the grind of each day. But even then it's hard to explain just what it's like to be moving from city to city, day after day after day after day... sort of like going on a big vacation with your family where every single day has a packed itinerary and it goes on for seven weeks longer than it has any sane right to
Alright so we start the journey by making our way across the Great Plains, in this case somewhere along I-90 in South Dakota
Into Montana
Washington and Oregon along the Columbia River
Oregon
Mount Shasta in CA
Bay Area
Carmel
San Luis Reservoir in Merced County drawn down due to drought
Santa Barbara
not Santa Barbara
