We checked in to a wonderful luxury hotel the day before the kickstart, had dinner all together, and I got to know the band, technical crew and the manager a little bit closer.
The tour consisted of open air shows at university campuses, so I had to turn gray, dull classrooms into fancy backstage and dressing rooms. I got nice sofas, curtains, flowers or plants and lamp-shades borrowed from collage management offices and guest houses, lots of candles, clean and neat catering areas. I had two assistants who did shopping and helped me decorate the rooms.
Everything went fine on the first day, except I forgot an important rider item and had to stress out to find it on the very last minute, and I skipped a song while typing the setlist, so the lighting technician, band and protools all started different songs as the song I skipped was one of the biggest hits and it was almost a rule that they play that song after that particular one. There was chaos on stage for a moment and I was freaking out realizing that it was my mistake, but they got everything together quickly.
Still, everything was ok, I could tell it as everyone seemed happy during our after show chill out party at the hotel with the artist and the whole crew. I kept observing everyone's reactions in all kinds of situations, noted them down in my mind.
The tour was going fine, audience was fantastic. We actually gathered around 25.000 people everywhere we went, but these were rather rural areas, there were not many events in those cities and the shows were toll-free. But still, listening to thousands of people singing along as a perfect choir every night was magical.
There was not even one person that I didn't like in the crew. Everyone was friendly, cool, fun. I could have great conversations with every one of them. I was the youngest, one of the only four girls, and the most recent person to join the crew. They seemed to like me as well, they were happy with the backstage arrangements I'd put, and they started to ask me things which weren't actually my responsibility like the meeting times and transportation. Every time they needed help on such stuff, instead of saying I didn't know, I quickly learnt the situation (like where the bus was, what time the soundcheck was planned, etc.) and responded with a solution. This led to even more questions every day, which was OK, because backstage arrangement was easy and didn't take up much time as the tour progressed.
Despite being approachable and friendly to everyone, I always kept my distance, especially to the band and of course, the artist. I let them know that I appreciated their talent so much, and that I was happy to be where I was.
As the tour progressed, we kept having a blast. We were staying at the best 5-star hotels all around the country, and the shows were only getting better. But there were many problems on planning end. For example one day, after we left the hotel for the venue, thinking that we would go back to the hotel at night to sleep, we found out that we were supposed to check out and set off to the next city right after the concert. Housekeepers and roadies had to empty all the rooms as we were all at the venue, working and had no time to go back to the hotel and come back. Another day, we had to wait for the nightliner for more that 1 hour after the show was over. Yes, we didn't have any itinerary, we just had 3 pages of print outs with hotel and flight info copied and pasted from emails, and they were constanty changing.
One day the manager had a huge fight with one of the band members, had a nervous break down just as the show was over and I had to arrange transportation back to the hotel, deal with university management team and the fans who wanted to meet the artist who was extemely angry as she also had an arguement with the manager.
In the middle of the tour, on one of the off days, that other band of the manager had a concert, and she just included me in the crew to work there without even asking me, and I loved it.
As I always enjoyed being around metalheads, I knew I'd love this heavy metal band in person, too.
I had a blast on that show, they were the easiest band to please with no ego, no "I am a star" attitude, just pure great music, fun, laid-back attitude and fiendship. They were a band of 20 years, guys were 40-45 years old and they were great. They're definitely one of my inspirations, my role models in life.
Towards the end of the university tour, transports and all communication among the whole crew had become my responsibility. I updated that print outs and added more details in the middle of the tour.
When this one exhausting and amazing month was over, I was definitely a part of that crew, couldn't wait to work on more events with them.
After sobering up following a great after-party on the last day of tour, I called the manager in the morning and told her that I wanted to be her assistant, I wanted to be involved earlier in the process of arranging concerts and schedules. I wanted to participate in production meetings. she agreed to give it a try, I got a rise of 100%.
Trying hard to believe that these were all happening, I was enjoying life so much.
Next: Surprise!
