The Long Day

Well, I’m sitting here on the last day of this tour, waiting for the show to start, and have a little time to write, so let me see how much I can get done before the show.  We are also leaving directly after the show and driving overnight to get back home (we do this a lot it seems), so I’m planning on finishing this entry up tonight in the van during our overnight drive. 

We recently played this new club in southwestern Illinois (by new I mean new to us).  It was a Wednesday night gig, but the show wasn’t scheduled to start until after midnight.  We thought that was pretty odd, since usually the weekday shows start earlier rather than later.  But you know us, we’re pretty much down for whatever.  We didn’t even get to the club to set up until after 10pm.  Here was the creepy thing for us.  I had looked up the address for the club on Google Maps earlier in the day, and we had it plugged into the GPS.  We pulled up to the address and the only thing there was a run-down abandoned building with an old Budweiser sign in the window.  This wasn’t looking good.  There were no other buildings around that even resembled a bar or club, so that had to be the right address.   What were we going to do?  It was night time, we obviously had the wrong address, and the town seemed to be pretty much deserted at that hour (at least in that area of town).  These are those moments when we get a little freaked out, wondering if we just drove all that way for nothing.  As the anxiety level started to rise in the van, we found a guy standing on the side of the road who looked like he might know where the place is located (yes, we were stereotyping).  We asked him if he knew and his response was “are you guys sure you want to go there?”  Uh oh.  That can’t be good.  But we reassured him that yes, we really did want to find the place, so he gave us directions and we finally found the venue.  By the way, it was nowhere near the address that was listed on Google.  Maybe next time I should call the club owner and confirm the address ahead of time, and save us the anxiety of not knowing where we were or where we were supposed to be. 

The next day (Thurs) after that show we had off because we were scheduled to perform twice on Friday. Our Friday schedule: Wisconsin State Fair in Milwaukee during the day, Red Rock Saloon in Madison at night.  Our plan was to drive from southern IL to Madison, drop off as much stuff as we could at Red Rock for the night show, then get a hotel as close to Milwaukee as possible and stay Thursday night so that we would be able to get up on Friday and make our State Fair show.  This ended up being a pretty frustrating day for me.  This is the where having an assistant or road manager would come in really handy.  But as it stands now, I’m my own assistant and road manager.  I couldn’t get in touch with the people I was trying to reach to confirm that we could still drop part of our gear off.  Again, that just makes my anxiety level rise.  On top of that, all the hotels within 20 miles of the State Fair were either booked up or ridiculously expensive; way over our budget anyway.  In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a planner.  I don’t like to just wing it.  I need a game plan ahead of time so I know what we’re doing.  Not knowing if we’d still be able to drop our gear at the club or where we were staying that night frustrates the hell out of me.  But since I’m my assistant, the fault is also mine.  Everything ended up being okay; at the last minute we worked everything out with the club and were able to drop most of our gear, and we were able to find a place in Madison to stay for a reasonable price.  So it ended well I guess.  Well enough anyway.  We went to bed that night knowing the next night was going to be both brutal and a lot of fun. 

The Long Day:

The alarm went off at 6:30am: WAY TOO EARLY.  That shouldn’t even be legal.  We left the hotel at 7:30 because we had a little over an hour drive and had to be there by nine.  After a few missed turns getting onto the interstate through all the construction, we were on our way.  We made it to the State Fair and found our parking area, and then we were escorted through the fair grounds to the Budweiser Pavilion where we were scheduled to perform.  At this point it was still only about 9:30 in the morning.  We got everything set up in plenty of time and were able to relax a few minutes before the first show started.  This show was different for us than most others in one major way: we were using monitor wedges instead of our in-ear monitors.  At all of our other shows, we have our ear buds in and have full control over the sound that we hear on stage.  This has become a huge luxury for me.  I get as much or as little of every voice and instrument as I want.  But at this show we weren’t using our ear buds or our monitor mixes, we were using monitor speakers and a sound man mixed the sound on stage for us.  He did a great job for us and we were able to play the show with no problems; it is just completely different and definitely put me out of my comfort zone.  Most bands actually do it like this all the time, I’ve just been spoiled by getting the same sound in my ear buds night after night for the past couple years, and this was a drastic change for me.  I also think we need changes like that in our routine just to keep us on our toes. 

*** Okay, time for the show.  I will get back to writing when we head out of town later tonight.

(5 hours later…)

Finished the show, loaded out, and we are hitting the road right now.  I’m sitting in the back of the van in the dark ready to continue writing.  So, where was I??? Oh yeah, the long day. ***

So, we played the show at the Wisconsin State Fair.  It went really well, and was a lot of fun for us.  Hopefully we gained a few fans in the process.  One of our goals for expanding is to get more of a foot hold and become more popular in southern Wisconsin, so this was an important show for us to do that. Hopefully we were successful.  Speaking of fan base, we even had a few fans from other states show up to the gig, which was pretty cool.  It's always a great feeling for us when people will travel from another state just to come see us play.  After the show we had to tear down, load our gear up in the van, and head back to Madison for the night show.  Getting out of the fairgrounds was not easy in the middle of the afternoon with several thousand people walking around, but we finally made it back to I-94.  Of course the traffic was ridiculous on the interstate as well.  After some slow going for a while we finally got through the traffic and made it back to Madison to finish setting up for the night show. 

After setting up and sound checking, we got back to the hotel with enough time for a quick shower and had to turn right back around and get back to the club for the show.  The show started at 10pm, and having been up for 15 ½ hours already and with all the work we had already put in, we were all exhausted as we started the second show at Red Rock Saloon.  Surprisingly, we all had pretty good energy and pulled it out.  It helped to have a rowdy crowd that was ready to party with us.  That always seems to help; having a large wild crowd like that.  By the end of the night we were all spent.  The show ended at 2am, and after we hung back for a little while for the crowd to clear out and drove back to the hotel, it was well after 3 o’clock in the morning.  I am one of those guys that just can’t fall asleep when I get back to the hotel; I need to wind down a little bit.  I can’t speak for the other guys, but I know it was past 4am by the time I actually fell asleep and my day ended. 

To sum up the ‘long day’, we were up for almost 24 hours, set up, played, tore down, set up again, played again; with about 3 hours of travel time mixed in as well.  It was a fun and successful day, but also much longer than any of us would have liked.  But of course we’d do it all again tomorrow if given the chance. 

There was no rest really the next day for us either.  We were scheduled to play a town festival just north of Rice Lake, WI, so we had to get up about 10am, head back to the club we played the previous night, tear down and load out all our equipment, and drive about 4 hours northwest to the next show.  We got there mid-afternoon and got everything set up.  We had a few hours of down time to eat and get cleaned up, and went right back for another show.  It was a Saturday night at the festival; we had to get ourselves geared up to put on a good high energy show for them. 

It was a fun show (most outdoor festival shows are).  The crowd seemed to enjoy what we did, and although we were still pretty wore out from the previous day, we felt that were able to give them a good performance.  There was one really memorable thing from the show that I wanted to share though; it was a full moon out that night and from the stage we had the most perfect view.  There was just something so peaceful about being able to see the full moon from the stage.  I wish I could describe it better for you, but it was just almost serine, you know.  We had a good crowd in front of us enjoying our show, and a beautiful view of the full moon above us.  I often say I have the best seat in the house every night; this night it was especially true.  For those of you that have our first album, you’ll remember I have a song called “By The Moonlight”.  I have a special appreciation for the beauty of a clear night and the light from a full moon shining down.  It just gives me a feeling of calmness and peacefulness.  I wish I could have gotten a good picture of it from the stage that night; but I seriously doubt a picture from my phone of the full moon with the crowd below would have done justice to just how amazing the view really was, so maybe it was better to not have a picture and just have the memory instead. 

We had to tear down all the equipment and load it back in the trailer after the show that night, which made for yet another long and tiring night for us.  But that is part of it with this career though, so I guess we probably just embrace it at this point and make the most of it.  Things could definitely be worse, you know.  Anyway, the next day we had an afternoon show about an hour away, so we were able to get a late checkout from the hotel and grab some lunch before we had to head over to the next show.  On the way to the show we were able to stop by the Bergstok Guitar Warehouse.  Just in case you need a reminder, Bergstok is the company that endorsed both Kevin and Josh with a custom guitar and bass guitar respectively.  We have never had a chance to stop by and see where the guitars were made before, so I know they were both excited.  We got a chance to play a few really nice and unique instruments while we were there.  It was a fun trip.  More exciting for me, they showed me a prototype of an acoustic guitar they’re building.  I make the joke that although the band is named after me and I am the front man, the other two guitar players were the ones with the endorsement from Bergstok.  I’m hoping their prototype for the acoustic turns out as well as I’m thinking it will.  Who am I kidding, I know the quality of their product; it will be fantastic.  I’m excited to try it out when they’re finished.  Anyway, it was a lot of fun to be able to stop by their warehouse on our way to our Sunday afternoon show.  We only wish we would have had more time to hang out and jam on their guitars for a while, but we were a little press for time by that point and had to get moving. 

                                         (Kevin with Sean Berg at the Bergstok Warehouse)

Oh, so I recently made some changes and updates to our website.  I have been trying to streamline it and make it more efficient.  Take a minute to check it out and see some of the changes I’ve made.  I still have some other things to add or change, but I’ve got a good start on it.  Hopefully will have it all finished later this week.  www.themichaeldband.com

While you’re at it, now would be a great time to ‘follow’ us on TWITTER if you don’t already.  We are a little lacking on our Twitter followers right now, so it would be so helpful for us if, after you follow us, you get some of your friends to do so as well.  Like I say, the best promotion for us right now is by word of mouth from our fan base.  If you tag us, you’re really helping to get our name out there, and I appreciate that more than I can describe. 

Also, make sure you ‘Like’ our FACEBOOK fan page as well.  We’ve seen a nice increase in the amount of people liking our page lately, so our fan base seems to be doing a good job of sharing us with their friends.  Keep it up for us!  Take a few minutes this week to invite all your friends to go Like our Facebook Fan Page. 

We’ve also been noticing more and more people singing along to some of our songs at shows recently.  You know me; this is the greatest feeling for me to see people singing along.  So if by some chance you don’t have our music yet, get on I-TUNES right now and download it; both albums!  Then make sure you EMAIL me and let me know what song is your favorite.  I continue to hear from our fan base stories about what songs they like, or their kids listening to our album non-stop, or about them sharing our music with coworkers, etc.  Every story I hear really does mean a lot to me; to know that somehow my words and music is touching people’s lives in some small way – it is pretty powerful for me. 

Well, I think that’s about it for this entry.  It feels good to just sit and write about our travels.   I think I’m even going to start next week’s entry right now as we’re driving down the road overnight.  I have plenty more to discuss from this past week, and I’m just in a writing mood tonight.  Might as well, right? 

I hope you enjoyed reading.  I’ll end with a song quote.  Be safe out there, and stay tuned for next week’s entry. 

“She brings out the beauty of a full moon” - By The Moonlight