A Case of Meta For

So we were loading out our gear tonight.... and it was a brutally long push up the ramp to the trailer. The arena's loading area didn't have enough room for our bus, so we had to park up in the parking lot, probably 300 yards up a long, steep, ramp. Because it was so far, most of us helped Garrett, our stage guy, push the cases up the ramp and out to the bus. I'm gonna be honest, it was miserable. It was long, and steep, and those cases were heavy!

While pushing all the cases, I couldn't help but feel that these cases were a pretty good metaphor for what being in a band is like.

These are the various road cases we've had out on this tour.

 

Being a band, you'd think we'd basically have amps, guitars, and drums, and that's about it, right?

Below is the same photo.... Cases with music-related gear are in blue. Cases with other types of gear are in red.

 

We've got a lot more non-musical stuff than you'd think right? The answer is yes, we do. Those other cases are full of lights (we bring our own extra lighting to the shows on this tour), cryo hoses and pods (cry is the big jets of smoke-looking stuff that shoot up off the stage), and all kinds of gear needed to make all that work. The basic jist of it? GIMMICKS. Yep. Gimmicks. The flashey lights and blasts of smoke designed to make people go "oooooh". We haven't even TALKED about merch. That's another rant. Aaaanyways..... Suffice it to say, we have a LOT of stuff that has nothing to do with music.

When I was a kid, and dreamed of being in a band.... I dreamed of those blue cases.
Sweet amplifiers, drums, and guitars. I never saw those red cases coming.

Invariably, those red cases are freakin heavy too. They're not always fun to push around. These are the less glorious cases, and the more you grow as a band, the more of them you seem to accumulate. You find yourself hauling these red cases around everywhere you go... something you don't remember agreeing to, and certainly didn't aspire to do. Eventually it seems like all you have is red cases..... and you find it hard to make time for the blue ones.

Finally, you find yourself musing over the journey you've taken.... You dreamed of blue cases.... but the longer you chased that dream, the more red ones you found yourself pushing around.

j.



p.s. in case you didn't catch it, this post has nothing to do with cases.

p.p.s. yes, i know that was a pun.