Tour Managers
“So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart, And guided them by the skillfulness of his hands.” – Psalms 78:72
“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too;” – Rudyard Kipling
I have worked as a tour and production manager since the late seventies, before that I worked as a FOH sound engineer, before that as a guitar player. I tell my colleagues, I am not sure whether I am climbing up in the business or going down…… Both roles, tour mgr. and prod mgr. fit me like a glove, almost everything else I have done in life never quite fit, but I am glad for all the experiences that I have had because it broadened out my view of life. I have a lot of respect for the good tour and production managers out there, but, unfortunately, the number that I would recommend can be counted on one hand. There are a lot of similarities between being a good tour manager and a good military commander. One, you are getting shot at, (actually some of the rap and r&b tours I have worked really didn’t feel any different,) and the other, you are just juggling too many balls in the air. Either way the stress has a tendency to take its toll. I always identified w/ Moshe Dayan and his success rate for the missions he carried out. He was very complicated and controversial; his opinions were never strictly black and white. his mental brilliance and charismatic manner were combined with cynicism and lack of restraint. Ariel Sharon noted about Dayan: He would wake up with a hundred ideas. Of them ninety-five were dangerous; three more were bad; the remaining two, however, were brilliant. If you are a history buff. I am sure you know all about the Six Day War. It was a war between Israel and Egypt, Jordan and Syria that began on June 5, 1967 and ended on June 10, 1967. In the war, Israel occupied the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. The odds that the Israeli’s faced at that time and their unbelievable victory got my attention as a teenager, it made an impression on me that has never left. Another very influential figure and fine example that developed my style of tour management was Billy Graham. Since 1945 he has been filling stadiums and has won the respect of the world by his integrity in doing business. I have been on the tar mats of many airports around the world, as they were going through our planes checking are equipment lists against the carnet. The process can take many hours. The officials were always quick to point out that if this was “Dr. Graham’s” plane it would only take a few minutes. He not only had the awesome respect of the officials, but his carnets and manifests were always in perfect order.
What does it take to be a good tour manager ? In a nutshell, you have to be willing to take the first bullet, so to speak, your primary job is to cover the backs of your crew and a band. This gives them the freedom to focus on their jobs. The challenge is to keep harmony between everyone, that includes the promoter, the artist, the manager, etc, etc. Keeping your head under fire is the magic in the end, when I lose this it’s time for me to hang up the holster and gun……..