Are We A Bus? The inside story of life on the road, Part 8

Yes the stereotypes

There must be more to life

All your life you’re dreaming

And then you

Stop dreaming

Time to time you know

You’re going on another bender

Blur

This is probably a good time to introduce the crew I tour with. The touring family is made up of a small, tight-knit travelling community, and although the people I work with quite often change from tour to tour along with the bands, the roles remain relatively similar.

First up is the all-important Tour Manager, or TM. You have your starter-package tour managers, who do front of house sound, set up the gear with the band, and drive everyone around in the splitter van. The splitter van is something most bands start out with on tour. Quite often, they’re old, converted red postal vans where seats have been put in the front section of the back for the band to sit in, along with a TV and PlayStation — if you’re lucky. The back half is where all the gear goes. You stay in crap hotels like Travel Lodges, and quite often everyone’s stuffed into two or three rooms. Less if you’re truly skint. The tour manager usually has their own room, even if that means the rest of the band are cramped into one room. The tour manager never shares. Staying in these budget hotels is a nightmare, and not just because the furnishings and facilities are basic. On a splitter tour, you usually only check into the hotel after the gig, you stay overnight and then travel to the next gig the following day. This means that you quite often get the night staff, who rarely knows anything about your booking, even if it was booked through a travel agent. Once they find it, they probably won’t have the accountants’ credit card details and will insist on cash in payment or something equally inconvenient. And of course, this is usually happening at one o’clock in the morning. Really, there’s always something when you are dealing with the night staff. Cue, tour manager losing their rag with the poor clerk who’s probably only been in the country a month.

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Tour managers are usually one of three types of folks:

a) Young people who are friends of the band, or who’re in bands themselves and so have a little understanding of how everything works but, are waiting for their own break. They’re doing this in tandem with seeking  success with their own projects. They have relatively little experience managing tours, but are trusted with the job anyway as the deals they get at the venues are pretty small, and there’s little actual “management” involved.

All they really have to do is get the band from point A to point B in one piece, and on time (this rarely happens). The vans will inevitably break down on the way to the first or second gig. Probably the second if you’re on your own tour, and first if you’re the support band on a larger tour. This is just sod’s law because of course, it’s not your gig. And, when you do inevitably show up late, the main band’s crew will offer up raised eyebrows and a patronising but knowing look. Usually, this’ll make you late for the first sound check on their busiest day of the tour — since they have to run through everything for the first time with the clock ticking away. Even if they have had warm up production days elsewhere, this is the first day of the tour where there’s a deadline, because the doors have to open at a set time.  You’re just an inconvenience at this point, which means the poor tour manager has to try and placate everyone whilst trying to befriend them, too. You need the main crew to do as many favours for you as possible so that, despite your meagre budget, the show goes smoothly for everyone.

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b) The second type is the crewmember who’s deftly moving through the ranks or roles available to the touring crew, like my friend Vic. This can either be because they’re looking to get more money or expand their opportunities for employment. Generally, they’ve worked before as a production assistant, front of house sound engineer, or backline technician looking after the musicians’ equipment during the gig. They have a lot of experience on tour and have seen and worked with enough tour managers to know what makes a good (or bad) one. They’re keen to do it right. Quite often, not really knowing how to do it is enough to make a great TM. These can be the best kind, since they’ve been on the receiving end of a shit TM and as a result, make sure  everyone’s looked after and kept happy.

c) The third type is the nice older gentleman or lady who’s been at it for years and who has worked with all the top names. Now that they’re  a bit older, they’re just taking it easy. They enjoying touring smaller venues and are largely just interested in roaming around the UK and Europe. Decades of experience means he or she takes everything in stride. Very jolly and loveable they are, and they enjoy bonding with a band who’s on the way up, excited about it, and yet to develop any prima donna tendencies.

Then there’s your mainstream Tour Mangers. These look after the headline bands who can be touring the UK, Europe and the rest of the world consistently for most of the year. They also work with bands when they do other things, like private parties, corporate gigs (nice little wad of cash), promos and festivals. They stay on the band bus and don’t turn up to the gig until the band arrives around four o’clock in the afternoon for sound check. It’s a full time job and they generally stay with one band exclusively for many years. They earn so much; they wouldn’t need to pick up another band even if they wanted to. They work in tandem with a Production Manager, who stays with the crew and turns up at the venue with them early in the morning to make sure everything runs smoothly.

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For some reason, tour managers in this bracket are really hit and miss. You get some who are really competent and personable, and a pleasure to work with. They’re great people who love what they do, take it seriously, and still manage to let their hair down a few times a week whilst making sure that the tour is running like clockwork. This can largely be due to them having a stellar Production Manager — between the two of them, they make sure that the band and crew are everywhere they should be, with the equipment they need when they need it.

For some bizarre reason, there are also complete wankers who snag these roles. Mean, rude, and incompetent, they quite often get ‘let go’ from every band they work for but for some reason still repeatedly land a horse on the carousel that is touring life. I don’t know how they get their jobs! It completely escapes me. They generally make it through one or two tours before they are sacked and move on to the next victims, and to add insult to injury, they enjoy a good salary and continue to work within the industry for years. Often, you find out how bad they are — and their actual track records – from a bit of gossip. Usually, ranting about them to fellow touring buddy leads to an entire conversation about their sordid reputation. This industry’s more closely knit than people think.  I recently worked with one jerk that appears to have pissed off all  four of his previous bands. In a situation like this where the crew have been around longer than the TM, we generally have enough great working relationships between ourselves, and strong enough friendships with the band, that we can air our grievances and it’s not long until they disappear.

Finally, you get the tour managers who look after bands that perform bigger shows in arenas and stadiums. They’re well experienced, generally middle-aged, highly professional, and don’t take any shit. These are the diamonds.

@areweabus


 

Bee
My blog follows the escapades of me, Bee, rock 'n' roll adventurer and swag girl as I travel the world assisting Tour Managers and selling merchandise for various bands. My fellow travellers include the band, the crew, the fans and various industry types. It lifts the lid on the myths surrounding the music biz and gives you a glimpse into that magical, filthy world. This makes what the kids in Skins get up to merely aspirational! My crew is older, but comically we're not yet wiser, and all of Europe is our playground. Are We a Bus?