On Tour: Day 1

We survived day one of the tour.

Actually, I think we did better than just survive. Being that it was the first show and we’re working with a reduced crew, I think we killed it. And thank god because we’re learning on the fly. I’m working with Charlie Hoehn on the video and audio production and we didn’t get the PA system until the day before the first premiere. We had a few hours to figure out how to setup and use the thing. How to get the wireless mics to operate on different channels without feedback, how to wire the sound from the board to the camera, how to do a sound check, etc. Had I been an AV guy in school, this wouldn’t be a big deal. But this was the first time I’d ever seen a PA system, let alone worked with one. And there’s always something that needs to be done. Setting up and breaking down the ticket stand. Getting the schwag table up and ready for people. Breaking everything down and clearing out the theater before the next movie starts. And that doesn’t even account for getting everything, and everybody, where they need to be and doing it on time.

To say that it’s been stressful would be an understatement.

And so there’s this huge disconnect between the actual experience and what the fans perceive as our experience. People see this as one long party across the country. I had at least three people tell me last night how jealous they were that I was on the tour. That they’d love to be a part of it, that it must be “sooo crazy.” And I couldn’t help but think, “If this is a party, it’s the worst goddamn party I’ve ever been to. When can I go home?”

It’s not that I’m not enjoying myself. There’s a lot of satisfaction to take from doing a job and doing it well. I think that we’ve got a really good crew to run this thing and I’m working with friends, which makes it fun. And it’s a bit of a party: Tucker got us kicked out of the bar last night for fingering a girl who was sitting on his lap. At the bar. In front of the bartender. We’re keeping it classy.

But there are downsides. Like last night, after the premiere we walked over to a bar to have a few drinks and unwind. A sort of celebration of, “Hey, we made it through the first night,” and these three guys followed us from the premiere to the bar. That’s weird right? Because it struck me as fucking weird. I get that they’re fans and that they just want to hang out, but one guy was so drunk that he just fell down. Mid-conversation. And the three of us — Chris, Charlie and I — just stared at him, with no clue of what to do.

The other spent the whole night talking shit to Jeff until Jeff choked him out and left him lying on the floor.

But it’s not all bad. After the Q&A, maybe 20 people stayed around to meet Tucker and get something signed. At one point, this girl, who was cute as a button, was standing next to me and said, “Is it weird that I stuck around to meet Tucker? There aren’t that many people here…” And looking at her and seeing how nervous she was, I couldn’t help but flash back to the first time I met Tucker. I was so nervous that I thought I might throw up. I was angling for a job that night, but more than that, I really respected both his writing ability and what he had done — taking his writing onto the internet and figuring out a way to make a living at it. It’s hard to meet people you look up to — musicians, writers — because we live with their work. It becomes part of our lives and part of our experience. It shapes who we are and how we see the world.

So it becomes a risk to meet the people who make that art. And you can just hope that those meetings live up to all the emotional energy you’ve invested over the years. And when it doesn’t live up to it, it tears something out of you, like you’ve lived with a lie that entire time.

And I really felt for this girl, because I knew how much it meant to her just to meet him and get a picture. More than anything else, more than the weird guys who followed us to the bar, more than the 14 – 16 hour days we’re working, more than the stress of just wanting to get this right — what comes back to me this morning is that girl. It’s for the fans like her that I want all this to be a success. They’ve been good enough to support Rudius over the last three years, and I’d like to give something back.