THE ONES WHO MAKE IT HAPPEN
Saturday we played at The Evan Theatre in Penrith. The crowd was great as usual, the show was fun for all and the local staff and our hard working BS&T crew worked their tails off to make us musicians look like a million bucks!! This post is for the unsung heroes who do the dirty work so our job always looks easy every time we hit the stage.
Dustin runs the monitor board on stage that all the musicians use for reference. He makes sure that both our in-ear and floor monitors are to each of our liking so that we can hear ourselves and the other band members during the show every night. Sometimes the equipment is old as the dinosaurs and other times it's so hi-tech that the bells and whistles can look like a video game more than a piece of sound equipment. That means he has to be able to go from Fred Flintstone one night to Capt. Kirk controlling the starship enterprise the next night and make each show seamless for us on stage so we can do our job without any hiccups. Thanks Dustin for all you do buddy.
Kevin (Little Smick) is the stage manager who along with carrying gear makes sure that our towels, water, set-lists, ect. are all on stage and in the designated places so that we are all happy and have consistent placement for our show needs. Great work Kev!
Mr. Smick is the Tour Manager/Front Of House for BS&T. His job is to baby-sit a bunch of full grown men out here on the road while making us all sound good for the venue, promoter, buyer, management and the audience every night. He's been with BS&T for 30+ years and is a special part of my journey over my 3+ years with the group. I lovingly call him Smickles or D.A. (Designated Adult) because he makes us sound great each night but he also advances the shows months before we ever leave our families and take to the road/sky to perform. U Rockith Smickles!!
While the band rested up for a few days and got some well deserved R&R. Some of us had to work on our day off though! WORK? (LOL) Our Publicist Tatiana had us up at 6am to do press between 7-2pm for the last week of shows here on the east coast of Australia before heading to Hawaii. Dylan, Larry & I took to the airwaves to tell everyone we could about the upcoming shows and meet as many folks as we could that have promoted us before we arrived. She was also the one in charge of the PR on our last trip to Australia 18 months ago when we made our way over to show our Aussie fans that BB/BS&T are still going strong and love to visit this beautiful country. She has been a sweetheart and helped us to put butts in the seat with media/press/interviews for our tours here in Aussieland. Thanks for your hard work young lady and thank you to all of the stations/radio personalities/news outlets who let us come in and chat with them about BS&T being here again to ROCK THE ROOS AGAIN. You're the best Tat!!
There are many people in the business who work behind the scene to make the tour a success so that we can stand on stage and get the applause each night. Many times they don't get a thank you from the audience for their exhausting job, sometimes even us band members forget and take for granted the fact that without them the shimmer can't become the shine. I always try to give them a shout out from the stage each night, but I really wanted all of you on the other-side of the music to have an understanding of how important their job is to our success as a group. We musicians are a "carnival of fools surrounded by jewels", I'm proud of each person who gives it their all so we can play rockstar for 90 minutes a night to the fans of this incredible music that BS&T is keeping alive. Us musicians always play every show for free, we just get paid well to travel and be away from our famlies. The crew is as much a part of this circus as the clowns on stage and we love them for what they do to keep us safe, happy and get us back home to our everyday lives that we love as much as our road family.
In case I didn't say it already today... THANK YOU! Without all of you this band doesn't have a gig and we are grateful for every one of you. I mean that sincerely.
Cheers to all!
BB