Life on the road is interesting for sure.
One of the things I really don’t like about the road is waking up in the various parking lots across America (or anywhere else for that matter).
Let me the share the events of a special morning with you. Detroit, Michigan, May 14th. I awoke when I decided that being cornered by thugs in a dark room was not the direction I wanted my dreams to be going in. Enough sleep if that was gonna be the content of my dreams! Dragged myself out of the bunk area and found the switch with bleary eyes to open up the front lounge door. I lifted the curtain to reveal a very rainy day indeed! My eyes then went to the table where there was a long note containing directions with how to navigate from this bus parking lot into the hotel. I did not have an umbrella or anything and the thought of this journey was difficult. I decided to further research the situation and open up the other side of the curtains.
This was a special view indeed! Terrorist? I saw a guy trying to light up a huge bin that was in the middle of the parking lot, 10 feet from our tour bus with all the sleeping band members. I reached for the phone and tried to figure out if I was gonna call 911 or just call my tour manager Rikk. My eyes caught a bunch of people (other terrorists?) standing under an awning by the hotel. Many of them were hlding the little red cannisters that you use to put out fires. Sorry, can’t think of what the stuff is called! Also they seemed dressed in various hotel type uniforms.
Maid, Concierge, Cook etc…The picture was shaping up a bit. FIRE TRAINING 10 feet from our bus!! Nice! Very nice. Well I called Rikk right away (and he came right away) but in the mean time I caught a bunch of pics of this huge fire going off and then the various employees putting it out! There was smoke surrounding the bus each time and I was not going out there to “talk” to them. Rikk came and lost his mind on them, which I witnessed from inside the bus. It soon stopped, See the pic of the fire at one moment from my bus window and the note that was left on the bus table with directions.
The Detroit dressing room was very special indeed so I snapped a shot of that. It was very very simple and not glamorous at all. Sorry to ruin anybody’s fantasy here!
In Columbus Ohio I happened to see a theater right by my hotel and on the billboard it said YO YO MA THURSDAY…Today was Thursday. I looked at James and said, “Lets go see if that is really happening later today?” Sure enough it was, and we got some great seats (third row) for the show. The Columbus Symphony was great and YO YO was awesome. Such joy exudes from him in his music making process. He was a real inspiration. Every note counted. Every phrase was a beautiful musical experience with full dynamics. James and I were very happy to get a break from the loud rock world to go see this event!
Out for my walk the next day I walked by the state house and happened to come across some heavy artillery. Well-not really, but I thought this Cannon was pretty cool, so I snapped a shot of it.
Finally today we are gonna drive over to Cleveland for another rock show. Tour is going well. I’m excited that we are heading back towards home turf for me!
Hope to see some of you out there smiling!
Musically,
