South Of The Border
Tonight we fly from Miami to Brazil, via Puerto Rico. This will be my first time riding in a combination cargo/passenger plane. All of our gear is on this charter, along with 32 seats for the crew. A total of 10 hours of flight time, roughly, and we will be in Sao Paolo, Brazil for the first show of the South America/Mexico leg of the 2007 World Tour. I may not be "seeing the world", but we will be flying over a lot of it.
I have never been to South America, and only worked in Mexico City once, last year with John Fogerty. It doesn't look like we will have much time to play the tourist, but I'll try to take some photos when I see something of special interest. This is pretty much a head-down, keep moving series of shows as far as work goes. The gear needs to be "palletized" (i.e. put on wooden pallets) after every show so it can fly to the next country. We won't see the usual method of using trucks to transport our gear until we hit Mexico.
After the Mexico City show, we have several days off in Las Vegas before we play a benefit concert at Mandalay Bay. I'm planning on sitting by the pool and working on my tan for most of that time off, with an occasional visit to the games of chance inside the casino.
I'm excited to start this tour. I did two weeks with Aerosmith last year and now I'm signed up for the whole 2007 tour. I feel like I'm actually a part of the team this time around, and that certainly helps the confidence factor. Tom Hamilton is back on bass, and we just met last week, since David Hull was filling in for him while I filled in for Jerry Sabatino last year. Tom is a great guy, a great player with excellent gear, and is low-key and low-maintenance. That makes it even easier for me to get into the groove of a new tour with a new band, new crew and new tour management.
Time to get some of that Miami sunshine into my skin and maybe burn away the nasty head cold I contracted a few days ago. Nothing worse than international travel when you are sick, and this cold has spread to a few other guys on the crew... See y'all later!
I have never been to South America, and only worked in Mexico City once, last year with John Fogerty. It doesn't look like we will have much time to play the tourist, but I'll try to take some photos when I see something of special interest. This is pretty much a head-down, keep moving series of shows as far as work goes. The gear needs to be "palletized" (i.e. put on wooden pallets) after every show so it can fly to the next country. We won't see the usual method of using trucks to transport our gear until we hit Mexico.
After the Mexico City show, we have several days off in Las Vegas before we play a benefit concert at Mandalay Bay. I'm planning on sitting by the pool and working on my tan for most of that time off, with an occasional visit to the games of chance inside the casino.
I'm excited to start this tour. I did two weeks with Aerosmith last year and now I'm signed up for the whole 2007 tour. I feel like I'm actually a part of the team this time around, and that certainly helps the confidence factor. Tom Hamilton is back on bass, and we just met last week, since David Hull was filling in for him while I filled in for Jerry Sabatino last year. Tom is a great guy, a great player with excellent gear, and is low-key and low-maintenance. That makes it even easier for me to get into the groove of a new tour with a new band, new crew and new tour management.
Time to get some of that Miami sunshine into my skin and maybe burn away the nasty head cold I contracted a few days ago. Nothing worse than international travel when you are sick, and this cold has spread to a few other guys on the crew... See y'all later!
posted by Tom Spaulding at 10:22 AM
1 Comments:
Have a few caipirinhas when you get there; you'll have a great time in Brazil!
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