If you don’t already know, we (Fleetwood Mac and roughly 80 staff and crew members) have been stuck together in rehearsals and subsequently on tour since February 2003. A few people have since left, a few people have since come, but on the whole, we’ve been together for nearly 9 months(with the exception of a few much needed, albeit short breaks to go home, kiss your loved ones, sleep in your own bed, and remember how to drive an automobile. But then it’s right back to work.)
February, March and April were spent rehearsing and planning for the upcoming tour, which started off on May 7th in Columbus, Ohio. At that point in time we were only scheduled to be out for about two months, five months later we were still on our US tour, which finally wrapped up in Las Vegas on October 17th. We said our goodbyes and headed home for two weeks, and that more or less brings you up to date.
On November 7th we arrived in Frankfurt, Germany for the first show of the European leg of the Fleetwood Mac Say You Will Tour*. That first show in Frankfurt will be our 71st show. Now, although I can’t rightfully speak for everyone, I think it’s safe to say we all have a lot of fun doing what we do, so we thought that we would share it with you.
*(Editor’s note: Stevie did not fly in with the band. She arrived in Frankfurt earlier in the week to prevent potential respiratory complications from the southern California fires — she suffers from asthma.)
Enter yours truly. What you guys see is the final product, a two and a half hour Fleetwood Mac show, but what you can’t see is that there is a bustling world of people, hard work and good times under the surface of that final product. So, for anyone interested, here’s a glimpse into the daily life of our happy little family?
Today’s Theme: Jetlag
We arrived in Frankfurt yesterday morning. The time change is nothing short of evil. As if 15 hours of flying and travel isn’t enough to cause delirium on it’s own? The addition of a 9 hour time change has caused me to feel like I’m living in a parallel universe. A lot of people slept on the plane, so they’re not suffering as much, I was not one of those lucky people. I was too interested in watching Fight Club and Charlie’s Angels on the plane, big mistake. Anyway, we spent our first day here catching up with each other and then trying to catch up with our sleep schedules.
Everyone seemed to have their own theory on how to beat jetlag, some of us slept all day, and were up all night, some of us deprived ourselves of sleep for 24 hours and spent the day looking like the walking dead. And the end result on the following workday was that no matter what you decided to do, you were tired. You can run from jetlag, but you can’t hide. Anyhow, we showed up to the venue today to load in and rehearse. It was slow going, due to widespread jetlag and the fact that it’s our first run at putting together a US set-up in Europe. It’s also our first show back from vacation, and it always takes us a while to get back into the swing of things. But given the things that could have gone wrong, I think everything went pretty smoothly. Go team!
The band arrived around 5:00PM and spent the first hour or so chatting, but finally made it to the stage to run through a few songs. And since we play a show here tomorrow in this building, we don’t have to load out, which also means that we don’t have to load in tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn. We don’t even have to go the venue tomorrow until noon. Hallelujah. It’s back to the hotel for a cocktail and a good (and quite necessary) nights sleep.
