Pulling back the curtain: What's touring like?

What's it like to tour? While I rarely get asked that question directly, I ones like these:

• "How do you get your equipment around?"
• "You must really like each other to be together as a group for so long!"
• "Do you have any roadies?"

I'd like to talk a bit about touring, with the caveats that (1) no tour is ever the same, (2) other members may have widely-differing perspectives, and (3) other groups may or may not have anything resembling our tours.

Getting ready

There are usually a couple of all-day weekend rehearsals before we send a team out, to make sure that the shows are ready. There are always logistics to be worked out no matter how well-thought through the set is. Also, it's easy for the veteran members to forget how overwhelming things are for a rookie, with terminology and spike marks and what's coming next oh my god where are my bachi and I'm on the wrong side holy crap!

We have our equipment in touring cases flown to a shipping facility, then fly out ourselves to pick it up. We'll rent a large Budget truck and one or two vehicles to drive from city to city.

Before a concert

This is where we do the bulk of the work, more so than the concert itself! When we get into a theater, we all start working. There's drums to un-box and un-bag, stands to build, spikes to lay out, lights to focus, drums to tighten, songs to run for sound checks, and running through the whole set skipping songs (cue-to-cue). Some of us are assigned specific tasks (like lighting or spikes) while the rest of us get to work on the equipment. It's a pretty well-oiled machine, where even if you're brand new to the process, the rest of us will mentor and explain how to do things and put you to work. Most of us also prefer to get in some individual practice if time allows.

However, you never know when complications arise. Ideally, we load into a theater the day or night before and play the following day, but quite often we have to load in that morning which cuts down on any luxury of time we might have. Lighting issues pop up more than we'd like, which can mean we're literally doing things last-minute to get SOMEthing working. There's also times where the crew is student-run or inexperienced, which means more effort on our part, which takes more time and energy.

After the show

We usually process out to the lobby at the end of a show to greet the guests, where there's a balance of hanging out and getting back to clear out. We change and strike the set as soon as possible, both for our sake and for the crew's. We're usually riding the charge from playing the show as we strike our equipment, and although it may look frantic, we have it down to a science. Plus, we're probably hungry and that's a motivation right there! Still, it's not uncommon to get back to the hotel by 1:00am some nights.

One philosophy of SJT is to leave a theater in better condition than when we arrived, so we make sure to clean up and then some. Part of that is also to appreciate the crew, who work with us throughout the entire time we've been there.

In between

While concerts are somewhat of the "focus" of a tour, we usually have more school outreach programs than concerts. They're 30-60 minutes shows at a theater or school that we practice along with the full concerts before we leave on tour. While they're not as physically demanding as a concert (even two of them in a row), they still take effort. We also quite frequently go to schools for a workshop, which combines playing songs and having hands-on volunteer sections.

Being in the theater takes up a lot of time, but most of our tour happens in between shows. Driving is a huge part of that! It can be 2 to 2o hours to get to the next venue, and we may have 1 to 3 days to get there. And then we do it again. And again. We'll switch out who's driving and who's in what car, but driving can really sap our strength, more so than performing.

Sometimes we'll stay in the heart of a major city, other times we're well out of the way. Hotels vary tremendously, but they're usually on the nicer side. If we're lucky, there are things to do during downtime, like visiting downtown, mini golf, a movie, etc.

Some members (usually Staff) contact upcoming venues, make sure things are on schedule, cut spikes for the next show, and other preparatory tasks to keep the flow...flowing.

Variables

Even though we have an itinerary for the whole trip, changes are common. There can be workshops or dinners with local taiko groups that pop up, workshops with students, interviews for local papers, extra prep for a really difficult stage, etc. People may get sick and since we're together so much, we have to take precautions to keep it from spreading. Vehicles don't always behave. Weather can be brutal for outdoor gigs. Flights might get cancelled. Whee!

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I hope I haven't de-mystified the experience of seeing us on stage when we tour? I think it adds a great perspective to know what goes on to make a performance. Touring is never a trudging from one stage to the next, nor is it a non-stop carnival of amusement. It's a job, it's an adventure, it's work, it's play!