Nurse the Hate: Euro Tour 2018 Prelude

I have been in the last crush before this tour.  Everything has come to a head in one snarling chaotic tension filled froth.  I handle essentially everything.  Coordinating dates with the booking agent.  Pressing a special tour LP.  Printing different shirt designs.  Booking flights.  Coordinating van and gear rental.  Coordinating promotional efforts in a language and culture I barely understand.  I am the go-between for everything.  It’s a great deal for most people to handle on their own, much less working full time with the responsibilities of a semi-normal “adult” life. 

I look upon the other band members with some envy.  They only need to pack their bags, show up and it’s all been handled.  For example, the only thing Leo is required to do is get on the flight I booked for him and land in Frankfurt with a snare drum, cymbals, sticks and a bass drum pedal.  That’s it.  If you get down to it, he could buy a toothbrush and underwear when he got there.  I feel confident that he has almost no idea of any of our destination cities, much less clubs.  Sure, he probably knows we are playing some of our favorite places like Stuttgart, the Wild at Heart in Berlin and Finnegan Shinnegan.  He’s likely overheard talk about Bux setting us up in Belgium.  However, it’s all vague.  Whatever happens, happens.  This is why receiving a text message from Hector in Iceland saying “Leo didn’t bring his snare” was almost the death of me.

A drummer literally has four things to remember.  I had 117.  Yet at 1035p the night before departing, I suddenly had to try and find a snare drum in Northern Germany that we could use for two weeks.  I thought I was going to have a coronary.  I would have felt badly about my death having the tour cancelled, though I suppose it could have gone off with “Whiskey Daredevils featuring Greg Miller’s Corpse”.  While maybe not as exciting musically, this version of the band might have outdrawn us with more curiosity seekers checking it out.  I can see it now as one German sipped a long crisp pilsner, saying to his friend, “Diese Band mit dem toten Kerl war etwas besser als ich erwartet hatte.”  (That band with the dead guy was better than I expected)

This will be a point of bitter contention and arguing within the van for years.  Leo has taken the position that he told me well in advance that he was not planning on bringing his snare and would instead just get one from where we rent the gear.  This explanation is a bit shaky as I knew weeks ago that we would be getting the gear from a different source, and he might not have the opportunity to take a snare drum.  A snare is personal to most drummers, the key to their personal sound.  It’s like asking to borrow someone’s retainer.  Leo asking me to secure a snare would have stood out in a “you want to get you a snare?  Seriously?”.  He is firm in his position, confident of his memory, despite decades of evidence pointing to the contrary side of the argument.  It is very well documented that if Leo “remembers” something, it is likely a wild guess at what he hopes might have happened.  It will be a bitter dispute that will never be resolved, like the DMZ in Korea.

The real lesson is I need to relax.  I did all I could to try and make this trip successful.  The die has been cast.  I should at least capture a sliver of joy out of it.  The bottom line is that playing songs you wrote halfway around the world to enthusiastic music fans is incredibly fun.  It is absurd that I was ever able to do this, much less after all these years of already having done it.  I need to work more Leo into my head, something I never thought I would type.  It will all work out somehow.  It always does.  Leo knows it, so why don’t I?

I’m about to leave for the airport.  I will provide as full an accounting of this slam though Germany and Belgium as I am capable.  Look for the Euro Tour Diary 2018 in this space.