I write this after our second full sold out show at the O2 Arena in Dublin, Ireland, while we are on our way to take a ferry to the UK, and then drive to Brussels. We will be traveling throughout the night until we reach Belgium, which officially wraps up our leg of the European tour in the UK. In the past couple of days we rocked out in Manchester and Glasgow, and came over to the Emerald Isle 2 days ago.  

The earlier shows were on the smaller scale, especially Glasgow, where we sent a couple of the production semi’s to Ireland early, since we didn’t need any of the special effects and lighting gear.  Once we reached Dublin, the excitement was palpable with the entire crew – we were now officially starting the arena touring in Europe. The O2 Arena in Dublin holds 12,000 people, and both nights at the O2 were sold out.  We now could officially flex our production muscles and use the full scope of the equipment.  We were now a big production, with even more logistics, planning, and worries.

Now, since we were at full strength, one of the most amazing things to experience was the raw energy of the people of Ireland.  Over the course of 24 hours we played in front of 24,000 raving fans, who were down to party, but were also swelling with national pride.  Ben Haggerty flaunted his Irish background, and the nation embraced him fully as family.  During our playing of ‘Irish Celebration’ we brought out two local Irish musicians (Martin and Ciaran Tourish of the band Al Tan), and had them join us on stage. The audience went nuts – it was almost difficult to hear Macklemore in my inner-ear monitors over the roars of the crowd as they sang along.  It was an incredibly emotional moment both nights – Macklemore had found a home with the people of Ireland.

Personally, coming through Glasgow and Dublin felt like a bit of a homecoming for myself as well.  Back in 2004 I lived in Stirling, Scotland for 4 months while I was attending the University there studying English Literature, and Scots/Irish fiddle playing. After our show each night at the O2 I jammed with Martin and Ciaran, and had beautiful flash backs of jamming with the locals throughout Scotland while I toured through Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Isle of Skye, St. Andrews, Inverness and beyond.  I fondly attribute my departure from my classical violin studies with the lessons I learned in Scotland – the Scottish definitely reinvigorated my love for music and performing with their communal love for all music, and their acceptance of all disciplines. I had studied classical violin performance and composition throughout college, but became disillusioned with the sterility, politics, and overly academic approach of Classical music.  To the Scottish, all music was beautiful, and it didn’t matter how good or talented you were at performing – they felt that everyone had a right to contribute, and should!  Ciaran and Martin reminded me of this as we jammed backstage at the O2, even bringing in Owour Arunga (Macklemore’s trumpeter) to try and get him to play trumpet on a couple Irish tunes.  (Note: Martin studied classical accordion, which I didn’t knew existed, and he also was a monster at it!) In the end, our whole team was embraced as family on the road in Ireland, and I will never forget that love and support.

Since this is my first time touring internationally, here are a couple of things I’ve learned on the road already in the past week:

Beginning Rules of International Touring

1. Learn how to sleep in a moving vehicle with lots of shaking, waving, and starts & stops. You will be sleeping at night while the bus moves so the quicker you can learn to sleep in these conditions the better. I’ve been able to cope by using melatonin to try and get to sleep, and also Dramamine whenever I feel slightly motion sick.

2. Make friends with catering. Well at least never become enemies.

3. Keep healthy.  A cold in a tour bus is like the bubonic plague – you can see it a mile away, and what’s worse, it will spread like wild fire throughout the bus.  I’ve been trying to stave off the sickness with working out (jogs and routines) and juicing fruits and veggies daily (another reason to be friends with catering, they will help supply all the raw materials you need to juice).

4. Always be on the lookout for WiFi. We are constantly on the hunt for spots with reception so we can catch up with our loved ones over Skype, check emails, and update our social media. A good steady WiFi network without interruption is tantamount to finding gold.  Also it is entertaining to see the random WiFi network names you find along the way.

5. Bring sandals. When your day job requires that you hang out at grungy music venues daily, you learn to protect your feet while you shower.

6. Comfort.  Forget bringing the awesome wardrobe, or the high maintenance dry cleaning clothing… you will mostly be wearing the most casual comfort clothes you own – except on stage.

7. A tour of Europe is mostly a tour of Europe’s best parking lots.  You rarely get a chance to get away from the venue, and some of the venue’s are in isolated parts of town, so you don’t get much of an opportunity to tour the cities that you play in.

8. Create your own routine to keep yourself productive and sane.  I found that indulging myself in working on string quartet arrangements in my spare time, and alone in my own space helped give me peace of mind, and in a way was meditative.  I’m currently working on arrangements for my group, the Passenger String Quartet, who is backing my girlfriend Susy Sun for her October album release show, and also new material for David Bazan and Built to Spill. Hopping onto this tour did little to slow down my own personal workload as a composer and arranger.

9. Triple check everything before you leave a show.  If it is lost it is 10 million times more difficult to reclaim if you are already in a foreign country.

10. Never get separated from your passport. You’d be surprised how often this actually happens on tour.

11. Always have some cash on hand. Now since we were done with the UK, we could exchange all our currency to Euros, which thankfully was a much better exchange rate than USD to Pounds.

12.  Don’t poo on the tour bus no matter what.  So plan accordingly.

13. Become friends with the old school tour veterans on the crew.  They will have fascinating stories about the road, other big name artists, and life lessons.  Jeff’s (the lighting crew chief) story about how he got his BFF tattoo is a riot.

I’ll keep on compiling more tips and observations from the road as the World tour progresses. Stay tuned for further updates!

(Programming note: Mark Lanegan’s (Queens of the Stone Age) new album “Imitations” comes out tomorrow on September 17 (produced by Martin Feveyear).  I wrote and recorded a ton of full symphonic orchestral tracks on this album, so make sure to grab a copy when you can! )

Quotes On Touring

“I’m most in my element on tour, with a gig that day, like today. I’m on the road where I am supposed to be.  I will be where I’m supposed to be at nighttime, on stage, in front of people, doing my thing.” – Henry Rollins

“It’s so important to take vitamins. People always get ill on tour because of the close proximity in the bus with everyone.”  -Ellie Goulding

“The fact of the matter is, when I’m on tour, I’m juggling so hard to keep all the balls in the air that I don’t often get to really enjoy what I’m out there doing.” – Amy Grant

“A tour is the most intense, stimulating way to hear music; It’s the best form to receive it.  There’s genuine excitement from people. I feel like we’ve stepped up a level.” – Julian Casablancas

Irish Proverb: “What’s the difference between a fiddle and a violin?  You can spill a beer on a fiddle…”