Sheffield, England: I’ve been doing pretty well with my blogging and photographing in each stop of my UK tour. Even at my busiest, I can still find a moment to stop, look around and snap a pic of something semi interesting in the city de jour.
Until today.
And I blame Elton John.
After each show, I sit up front with the driver / merch manager, Jonnie, have a cup of tea (when in Rome…) and go over merch figures for the evening. If enough energy permits, I’ll try to scan through pics from the day and write the boy a quick email to say hi and tell him how my day was.
Leaving Glasgow, somehow I stayed up until 3am, knowing that I would have to be back up again in a little over an hour to check the artists into the hotel. Right on time, I got my 4:15am wake up call from Jonnie as we pulled into Sheffield. Dressed in my best pjs, Jonnie and I entered the hotel and asked to check our group in.
Front Desk Clerk: “I’m sorry, those rooms have been cancelled by the tour manager.”
Me: “Ha! That’s funny because I’m the tour manager.”
Front Desk Clerk (looking a little panicky): “Actually, it was a gentlemen called Tony and he said those rooms were not a part of the group.”
Me (feeling a little panicky): “What do you mean TONY? And which group are you referring to?”
The front desk clerk handed me a rooming list of 30 or so rooms and the name ELTON JOHN CREW typed across the top.
So, not only did Tony with ANOTHER tour cancel my rooms because they were not part of his group, but the hotel was actually sold out and they were not able to accommodate the rooms that were reserved for my artists.
Um… WTF?
The front desk clerk rings another hotel who can accommodate us just a few miles down the road. But only single beds and no late check outs guaranteed… of course, mind you, this is all happening at 4 in the morning… in pajamas.
Once the bosses are safe and sound in their new rooms, the bus heads over to the venue to park up for the rest of the day. Though at this point, because of hotel drama and my bad decision to check email on my iPhone right as I get into my bunk, I can’t sleep. Which isn’t a good thing, considering I need to be up in about 4 hours to get my day started again.
When the day – officially – began, the deck of cards for the day was dealt: realizing I don’t have a hair dryer with me that I can use a power converter with, scrambling to find a last minute fill in London-based guitar tech (to start in 2 days, please), trying to convince everyone that they WILL take Scottish pounds in London, waiting last minute to get a final count from the box office before the last note of the set… and during all this, not a moment to snap a picture.
But I did find out Elton cancelled his show. Maybe that’ll teach him not to cancel my rooms anymore. ☺