A different perspective

Over the weekend, I attended a country music concert at the Tweeter Center. Brad Paisley and his entourage were fantastic, giving a great show full of excellent music. The Tweeter presented them well and the huge crowd was very enthusiastic, but halfway through the concert I found myself considering that I have very recently been in a similar position. The country tour travels in vehicles together, taking everything they need, going across the country from venue to venue, performing a show every day in a space they have never seen before. This is just what we did for the winter last year with Cinderella, although granted usually on a much smaller scale. We performed in smaller venues, for smaller crowds, generally for smaller people, but we were basically doing the same thing.

So that got me thinking about that particular style of living. As much fun as Brad and Jack were having onstage, backstage I knew they were trying to find their dressing rooms, eating whatever brand of food was provided, worrying about the laundry they had to do before the next venue, thinking about spending the next day on the road, and wondering where they would sleep for the next week. Now, granted, they have tour buses, gobs of money, and personal assistants who do all that for them, but the basic life itself is the same. I'm not saying that we share the same experience; I'm pretty sure that country stars don't really have to work in shifts to navigate their own touring vehicle through the night. It was a fun moment where I realized that our jobs might not be all that different.