The price we gladly pay

What are you willing to do to get to play a great show? I remember back in 2006 Sliotar heading out on a tour. We were all exited, we had some great shows booked across Europe. We knew it was not going to be a walk in the park. We were what you call “roughing it” in the business. We slept most nights of that six and a half week-long tour in our small tour bus, which though was very self-contained, did not have air-conditioning (it was 1980s old school bus). When the sun came up in the cost of Italy, there was no way in the world you could sleep in that sweat box.

We had breakdowns, we had long drives where we did not have time to stop for food, we all were homesick somewhere along the way. It was a great learning curve, and thought us a lot. And if someone would tell me know I could go on a trip like that and truthfully explain everything I would have to endure, I don’t know how exited I would be.

But it was those great shows at the end of the long drive, that made it all worth our while. You see if you are passionate about your music, you will travel across countries to play at a festival, You go beyond what would be considered “reasonable,” because that is what it takes. You love what you do.

There is a passion that drives us, and it is hard to explain that passion to others who don’t do what we do. But those of us who are touring musicians know. The thing is, sometimes there are people who do know what we are willing to go through, and unfortunately try to take advantage of this. This is what we must watch out for. We must value what we do, enough to sometimes be willing to say no as well.

Right now I am writing this blog post from Denmark, somewhere north Jutland. It took us two days to get here. Tonight we played a show at a wonderful festival, and now I am back at our accommodation. In a few hours we are going to be picked up and we have full day of traveling ahead of us. And by tomorrow night we will be back in Dublin playing a show in The Porterhouse. Why do I do it? Because I love it 🙂 That is why so many of us do it. It is the price we gladly pay to get to play a great show.

J.P.

The author J.P. Kallio is a singer songwriter
To get EIGHT of his songs for free go HERE