Did you ever wonder what happens on a day off when a band is on tour? It’s kind of interesting.

The night before a day off you sleep like a baby. I guess it’s because you know you have the next day off. No early morning wake up call to get you down to the lobby to go to a radio station or a tv studio. Usually you sleep straight through the free complimentary breakfast you get in your finer hotels. You sleep all the way until…

You are at that critical time of the morning when there is just enough time to eat breakfast before its too close to lunch to justify it… or you can grab what appears to still be an apple off the coffee table and go to the gym. But it’s your day off! Doesn’t a day off mean you can take a day off of exercising too? A day off means you can eat whatever you want and not step on the elliptical machine for a second. Even though this means that you will miss the episode of Andy Griffith you have gotten used to watching every morning you make up your mind to skip working out. We all set our Tivos back home to record Andy while we’re gone anyway.

You step outside the hotel. You look to the left…you look to the right. You see all these shops and parks and restaurants around you. They all shimmer in the distance. The very far distance. You don’t have a car. It looks like such a long walk. It’s hot out ( if you are touring the west or south) or its really cold ( If you are touring Alaska or Siberia). You turn around and go back into the hotel and turn on the tv in your room.

You check your suitcase. Got enough t shirts to make it till the end? Jeans starting to smell a bit ripe? Sock supply holding up? You got a choice to make. You can go down to the lobby and get three pounds worth of quarters, find the laundry room and resign yourself to spending the afternoon checking the dryer to see if your clothes are done….OR you can wear extra cologne to disguise the funk, switch to your sandals so you don’t need socks and wear a vest without a t shirt…a kind of swarthy, bullfighter look.

Nap time. Mid afternoon was made for the closing of blinds, the turning on of CNN and a short two hour snooze. We tell ourselves that we are recharging our batteries. We are regaining our strength for the final push. Blah blah blah. We would nap if we were airline pilots or plumbers. The only difference is when WE do it no one screams or complains about the water on the floor.

Off days are when we take the band out for dinner. This is our chance to bond like the brothers ( and sister) that we are. Because all of us are going we are justified in taking the van and driving to a nice restaurant. Not too nice. This tour is a break even affair at best. One extra side dish and the whole thing dips into the red faster than a nacho chip at a Mexican restaurant. Wait….Faster than a surgeon pulling out a ruptured appendix. Wait…

Back in the room. Clean clothes ( or heavy cologne odor)…check. Nap….check. Exercise….yeah, right. Well done.

The glorious wonder that is a “day off” is coming to a close. Another one looms a few pages ahead in our tour book we laughingly refer to as ” the Book of Lies” and we look forward to it like a nine year old looks forward to his first petting zoo.

Thank you and goodnight. See you at the show tomorrow. We will all be well rested. And if we reek of Old Spice …you will know why.