Tonight, The U.S. Army Field Band concluded a five-day tour of Ohio and West Virginia. We left on Monday, played Clarksburg, West Virginia that night, East Liverpool, Ohio on Tuesday, Parkersburg, West Virginia last night, Zanesville, Ohio (plus a brief video shoot) tonight, home tomorrow. For a band accustomed to five- and six-week tours, this barely counts as a workweek.
Mini-tours are different from long tours in a lot of ways. Here are some pros and cons:
+ No laundry. This is a real perk. Between the travel and the concerts, there’s not a lot of real free time on tour. By the fourth week, finding/walking to laundromats, fighting the mob for the hotel washing machine, collecting quarters, separating dirty/clean clothes in the suitcase, etc. starts to feel like a hassle. No need to do laundry on mini-tours.
– You pack almost as much stuff for one week as you do for six. Most Army Field Bandsmen have the packing process down to a science, but it still takes the better part of a day if you’re careful. Most of us have a case or two for musical instruments, a bag for clothes, a bag for uniforms, a bag for the computer/electronics, a food bin, bottled water, and possible something for books, exercise gear, whatever. You can cut down on some of that, but for the most part, 85% of that still goes on the bus, and it all comes off on Friday.
+ Maintaining healthy eating habits is way easier on mini-tours. On long tours, you’re limited to whatever’s around. Even if you try to do it smart and live off of groceries, you usually don’t have the freedom to drive to a store. You’re stuck wherever the bus convoy takes you, and depending on which region you’re touring, you might not see a grocery store for a week or more. This tour is so short, you can bring whatever food you want (allowing for cooking and refrigeration limitations) and it’ll last the whole trip.
+ You’ll be back with your family soon. This is an obvious biggie. Tour as a lifestyle involves an emotional push-and-pull throughout the year: 1) knowing you’re leaving your people soon, 2) actually leaving, 3) not seeing them for more than a month, 4) finally getting home and trying to reacclimatize, and 5) working towards the next tour. Since this tour is so short, its impact was minimal.
– Long tour begins in three weeks. This out-and-back stuff breaks up what family time we have.
Tours like this make me wonder how different the job would be if Monday-through-Friday tours were the norm, but it wouldn’t be feasible in the long run. If we want to reach the Dakotas, Texas or the West Coast, tour has to be long enough to make it economically practical. If tours were a week long, we’d only have two weeks at home in-between, which wouldn’t give us the time we need to prepare new band/chorus programs or work out logistics for upcoming tours. Long tours are the way to go.
This tour was nice and short, and we did some good work. But as cool a job as this is, it kinda makes me wish the long one wasn’t quite so soon.