Lookout Italy!

One of the last highlights of my twenties was my first trip to Europe to play a gig. It was a one off in Rome, Italy with Jeff Kollman and Christopher Maloney. Like the Speak No Evil gig I didn’t want to do it at first and once again my buddy Curtis Skelton talked me into it. This time was different though. The music was extremely difficult and I just didn’t think I had it in me to pull it off. ( a common theme is developing here, my head can be my worst enemy!) This was possibly one of the craziest and most fun experiences in my life.

Not only were these tunes hard but there were about 16 of them and Kollman wouldn’t let me use charts (probably a good decision). We did a rehearsal about 3 weeks before leaving and it went well. There was a lot of parts to remember but for a first rehearsal it went pretty good. I had played with Christopher before so I felt comfortable with him and that helped a lot. Plus, he was good as cueing me when I was lost!

Even though we were only playing one show we were going to be there for 6 days so it was more like a vacation than a tour. So we all had our schedule cleared for the week, Chris and I worked at MI so we had to get subs. About a week after the rehearsal Jeff calls me to tell me that the gig may be off. Something about the club getting shut down by the police and it wouldn’t be open it time. Bummer right? Well not exactly. The tickets had already been purchased by the promoter and Jeff had them. His thought was since we had all cleared out schedules for the week that we should go regardless of the gig happening or not. Christopher and I agreed. I couldn’t get the work back that I subbed out so I might as well go to Italy for a week.

Jeff called the promoter back and told him that the club not being open wasn’t our fault and we were coming over anyway. Either a new club could be found or we would have a vacation. That’s the deal. A week later the promoter called Jeff with the news that he found another club and the gig was back on. Game on! Not so fast. This news came literally days before we were supposed to leave and we had only rehearsed one time! On top of that I was having some pain in my wrist that was making it hard to play simple stuff let alone Jeff’s crazy music. But the show must go on and here is how it happened.

8am the day we leave for Italy:

We pull a 2 hour rehearsal which was only our second rehearsal at Jeff’s studio in Grenada Hills

10am the day we leave for Italy:

Christopher and I leave Jeff’s go to our homes to shower, change and pick up our bags.

11am the day we leave for Italy:

We all meet at Christopher’s to get a ride to the Van Nuys Flyway to go to LAX

12pm the day we leave for Italy:

Arive at LAX and check in

Sometime between 2-3pm the flight leaves

Sounds like a crazy day huh? Well it’s not over yet

We have a 6 hour layover in Frankfurt, Germany. We weren’t about to sit at the airport and since I had never been to Germany Christopher decided to show me the town. That meant finding a pub and having a few German beers! We actually had more than a few but it was all good. We made it back to the airport and were ready for the next leg of the trip to Italy.

If it were only that easy…

Since a lot of the songs we played had backing tracks I was carrying a mini disc player around with me in a silver hard case. Not only did I get singled out by security at LAX before we left but the Germans got me twice. I almost didn’t make it to the flight. I’m glad I just use my computer now because that was a total nightmare.

So we finally make it to Italy. Not sure what time it is (around 1am local time I think) but we head out to have some food and grab a drink. We didn’t intend on staying out late since the gig was the next night but as the saying says: “When in Rome…”

Next thing we know it’s 7am and we’re just getting back to the hotel and we’re a little worse for the wear. Being true rock stars what else were we to do? I’m mean come on we’re in Rome!!

Believe it or not we got up around 9:30am that morning and all of us felt pretty good. We had a couple of hours to walk around Rome before the promoter and his crew picked us up for the show so we did a little sight seeing. It was pretty cool! Rome is quite amazing and definitely one of my favorite places on earth. If you’ve never been there I highly recommend it!

The show went off without too many problems. We had fun and the crowd was really great. We made some new friends and once the gig was over we promptly set out for another late night on the town. That’s pretty much how the rest of the trip went. We spent most of our time seeing the sites and creating as much havoc as possible. All in all a pretty good trip.

But wait, it gets better…

The night before our return trip home we all went out. In different directions. Jeff and Chris went one way and went another. See ya’ll in the mornin’! I made it back to the hotel around 7:30 in the morning. Jeff, Chris and our guide Fabrizzio were already there and Fabrizzio was crashed out in my bed. So I grabbed my cymbal bag and crashed out on the floor to try and get about an hour of sleep before we had to go to the airport.

We were awakened by a frantic Fabrizzio around 10am. I didn’t realize they made it back to the hotel only about an hour before we and we had all overslept! Now we’re running late for our flight and on top of that we only had one tiny car to try and get us to the airport. Who ever the other person was that was supposed to help us didn’t show up. Now Fabrizzio is running around frantically calling his friends to try and get another car. Luckily he did and we made it to the airport just in time to make our flight, or so we thought.

They checked two pieces of our luggage before they told us we couldn’t make the flight. They make us go down and get the luggage even though they messed up, charged us $150 each to get another flight and we went and got a bite to eat. Nothing else could possibly go wrong…

By the time we made it to Frankfurt we had missed our connecting flight and there wasn’t another flight until the next day. Now we’re stuck in Germany. Jeff makes a couple of calls and we get a place to stay at a friend of his. We had all partied pretty hard this trip so when we went out that night drinking and partying was the last thing on our minds. All we wanted to do was grab a bit to eat and relax a little. After all missing one flight was enough.

I can’t speak for Jeff and Christopher but relaxing isn’t one of my strong points. It only took about an hour and dollar Jager shots and we were off and running, again. That night might possibly be the craziest of the entire trip. On top of that we almost missed our flight the next day. Luckily the person we were staying with was on top of the time, got us in the car and to the bus station in time to make it to the airport.

This time we didn’t miss our flight. Matter of fact I think I had an entire row to myself so I stretched out and crashed for 10 hours. Makes a long flight seem pretty short!

Thus ends my first trip to play overseas. It was great, the music was great (and hard) and the musicians and people I met were fantastic. I couldn’t have asked for a better time. This also sets up the next few years of touring and recording but I’ll save that for next time.

Previous Musical Headspace Entries:

25 Years of Drumming Pt. 1
25 Years of Drumming Pt. 2
25 Years of Drumming Pt. 3
25 Years of Drumming Pt. 4
25 Years of Drumming Pt. 5