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I read an interesting message board post the other day in which this question was raised. The post was written by a musician who had just opened for Grand Funk Railroad. His account tells of an exciting day and show for his local band (and the 4000+ in attendance). They were treated well by the event staff, had their own backstage area, and performed to a packed house through state-of-the-art production. They were even able to bring their families to share in this experience.
The only negative was his perception of the day’s headliner. While giving GFR credit for having exceptional musicianship and putting on a “killer show”, he went on to say that they were “tremendous jerks”. This was apparently based on the fact that the band was nowhere to be found throughout the day despite an interest from some fans for autographs, and a desire for the musicians in the opening band to meet them. The fact that they were not hanging around backstage all day was interpreted to mean “GFR wanted nothing to do with the unwashed masses”. He went on to comment that there was a cooler backstage marked “Grand Funk Only” and that he opened it up only to find that “there was nothing in there but fruit juice anyway.”
Lastly he mentioned that he met a man with his son in the parking lot and that the young boy wanted his sticks signed by Grand Funk’s drummer. So during Grand Funk’s set this local musician takes the young boys sticks to a security guard requesting the autograph. Apparently the security guard declined, prompting the comment in this fellow’s post “How do you behave like that?”
This brings up some common false perceptions that many people have about national level touring acts and high profile artists.
First of all, touring is hard work. Despite what might be portrayed on some VH1 episode of behind the music, the life of a touring artist or band is not all that glamorous. When I went to Grand Funk’s website I noticed this particular show was a one-off, with no dates preceding or following it by a week. Likely, this appearance in Webster MA was a fly date for the band and crew. For a band like Grand Funk performing a show of this nature, they probably flew in the day of the show. They might have gotten up as early as 5 or 6 AM to drive to an airport, spent 8 to 10 hours trekking suitcases and guitars through airports, onto planes, through more airports and planes, eventually winding on a van ride to a hotel somewhere near the venue. They might have appeared at the venue for a mid-afternoon sound check and then returned to the hotel for dinner and a shower before the show. By the time they hit the stage for their performance at eight or nine at night they might have been up for 12 to 14 hours. Regardless of their daily activities and methods of transportation, it sounded like the concert was their primary focus as they supposedly put on a “killer show”.
According to Grand Funk’s website, one run of shows earlier in the summer brought them from back-to-back concerts in California, to Michigan, back to California, to Montana, Oregon, and then Washington, all in less than 10 days. Judging by the routing, these were undoubtedly fly dates with some long van rides likely in the mix. Just one fly date can be exhausting, let alone eight in a row. Other touring scenarios put acts like Grand Funk and others on a tour bus as a means of travel. While a half million dollar Prevost XLII might seem plush upon first examination, it is still, just a bus. And this means they are sleeping in a bunk about the size of a coffin while rolling down the highway at 75 mph. Sometimes the location of concert dates requires as much as 500 to 1000 miles of bus travel between shows (8 to 16 hours of driving time). I don’t care how nice the bus is, traveling thousands of miles in a week is exhausting.
This is all part of the job of a touring band, artist, or musician, and most take it in stride. While the musical performance might be the high point of the day, the long hours of travel, isolation from family and friends, and constantly being around other people causes many performers to cherish the occasional privacy they may have on the road.
So just because you didn’t “see them” doesn’t mean they weren’t there at some point before the show. Or maybe travel arrangements didn’t even get them on site until minutes before the show. Maybe they were on site well before showtime and hanging in some dressing room, tired from traveling and saving their strength to put on a “killer show”. Maybe the cooler was labeled “Grand Funk Only” because they only drink fruit juice, and this was their only beverage for the night. Many artists are required by event buyers to put on a “Meet and Greet” in which case they might have to meet, be photographed with, and sign autographs with as many as 50 people or more, likely all of whom are complete strangers. These Meet and Greets are not typically optional, and if an artist is tired or even ill they must put on a happy face and go out to shake hands with this roomful of strangers.
It would be no different than if you were standing in line at the bank on your lunch break and a complete stranger started talking to you and demanding your undivided attention. You might talk to him because you’re a nice person, but you might have actually preferred to be left alone, to enjoy your own privacy.
High profile bands, musicians, and artists are just people. Touring on a national level is just a job for these folks, and a hard job at that. All the public sees at a concert is the finished product, a concert hall prepped for hours before the doors are even opened. The version of their favorite band or artist they see is the “showbiz” face all artists are required to wear. But the reality is that by the time that performer hits the stage they have likely had a hectic and busy day. They will likely leave that concert venue after the show only to do it all over again the next day. On the one day out of the year that you saw them in concert, they might be having a great day, or, they might be tired, sick, or having a not so great day. They might be missing their kids, experiencing marital problems, or even going through financial hardships. They are just people that happened to choose music as a profession – real people that experience real human emotions, have lives away from their job, and go through all of the same kinds of problems that life throws at the rest of us. The only difference is their profession doesn’t allow for sick days.
So, what do bands and artists owe the public and their fans? The answer is quite simple – a great show. Nothing less, and nothing more.
Have you ever challenged yourself with something really, really hard. I mean something so difficult that initially you weren’t even sure if you could do it? Challenges like running a marathon or completing a triathlon, learning to speak a new language, losing 100 pounds, or mastering a musical instrument are all daunting tasks that can take months or years to accomplish and require an extreme level of “stick-to-it-ness”. Initially, this challenge might not be something that you need to do, but something that you want to do, or maybe even feel compelled to do. You take on this challenge simply to see if you can do it and because you sense it will make you a better person. The reward might be unknown at the onset and not come for a long time if ever, but still you march on with this challenge because it feels right.
Many years ago I was faced with such a challenge when I was playing guitar in the New England-based band “Crossfire”. The year was 1990 and the bands leader, Rob Gourley, suggested that I learn the Eric Johnson instrumental “Cliffs of Dover”, as he felt it might be a good showcase for me at our shows. He said that this was not something he expected me to do, but that if I wanted to learn it, the band would play it.
At this point of my life I had just finished my Berklee education, an extremely challenging experience in and of itself, so the idea of learning a four-minute piece of complex guitar music didn’t sound too daunting. At least that was my initial perception.
So I embarked on this new guitar journey. I outfitted a makeshift studio in an empty bedroom at my friend, Pete’s house with a practice amp, a boombox, a reel to reel tape deck, a metronome, and a music stand. I went out and purchased a copy of Eric Johnson’s “Ah Via Musicom” on CD as well as the guitar transcription and got to work. And work it was. When I had first heard this piece of guitar magic on the radio I recognized its brilliance, but Johnson’s impeccably fluid technique almost masks the songs difficulty. He made it sound easy, and easy was something I quickly discovered this song was not.
By the time I had put a couple of afternoons into it I realized this process was going to take weeks, maybe even months to be able to do the song justice, but that was no deterrent. I quickly realized if I could master this piece, not only would it be a great showcase for me with my band, it was going to make me a better guitar player in the process.
Crossfire was a steady working band and my only job at this point in my life, performing all over New England 3 to 4 nights a week. So my daily routine during this phase consisted of sleeping late, eating a late breakfast or early lunch, and then heading over to my “guitar studio” for an afternoon of extreme woodshedding.
I began with the intro and learned as much of the opening passage as I could by ear. When I came across a phrase I couldn’t interpret I used the sheet music. When things still didn’t make sense, I used the reel to reel tape deck to slow the song down to half speed. Gradually, one phrase at a time, it began coming together. After a couple of weeks of this I could make it halfway through the song, granted with many mistakes and not very smoothly. I labored on. After about five or six weeks I knew the entire song note for note but could still not play all of it at tempo. So I began practicing the most difficult passages at slower tempos, one phrase at a time, sometimes running a one bar phrase over and over for 10 or 15 minutes, gradually nudging up the tempo of the metronome. Of course a one bar phrase of Cliffs of Dover might be a flurry of 10 or 12 notes played in about a second.
Finally, after about three months of making my friends and family crazy, shredding my fingers to the bone, and a couple of ugly moments when I almost threw the guitar through a window, I was ready to present it to the band. We made a few passes one day during a sound check/rehearsal and we were good to go. The crowd loved it when we played it later that night, and it became a staple in our set for the next two years. My performance on this piece gradually improved over that period, as the experience of playing it live helped me to further kick it up a notch. The song was so difficult to execute that I still practiced it daily during this period. Eventually I left Crossfire for another band and although I continued to play this piece, it wasn’t long before I put it aside.
Looking back, Cliffs of Dover was the hardest piece of music I have ever learned. I probably put between 200 and 300 hours into it prior to ever playing it with the band. But I do remember feeling instant results after I could play it. Performing less technical songs and solos became easier. My hands and fingers were stronger and my stamina had improved. My ear had also improved making it forever easier to learn new pieces of music.
Lately I’ve been feeling the need to challenge my playing again so I decided to bring this piece out of the closet. I sat down with it a couple of weeks ago and have been working it back up to speed ever since. It’s been 15 years, and the process of sitting down with it again is like visiting an old friend. Although not as daunting for me as it was back in 1990, it’s still a bitch, and I have a ways to go yet. Once I can get it to a point I feel comfortable with, I’ll post a video for you all to check out.
Completing this challenge was hard back then, and it’s hard again right now. But I believe it is these kinds of challenges, self-imposed or other, and the new horizons they lead us to that encapsulate the best of the human spirit.