David Davis – TOUR TIPS
In this Tour Tips segment, the pop artist, David Davis, gives you his tips for being on tour.
In this Tour Tips segment, the pop artist, David Davis, gives you his tips for being on tour. You can check out the feature, after the break.
1. Find Your Piece of Heaven:
The opportunity to tour gives you an incredible chance to see so many new and different places. In the rush of getting to the venue, setting up, sound checking, and doing your show, it’s difficult to center/ acknowledge that you’re somewhere badass, doing something badass. If I’m limited on time, I try to at least google “Food Network Best Eats (enter city)” and will pick up an order of whatever is city specific. If I have an hour or two, I’ll search for a park nearby or some natural place to just sit and be like, “Hell yea, I’m here doing what I love!”
2. Singers – Try to Limit Talking in Loud Places:
Post-show, it’s so fun to talk to new people that are digging what you just did. A lot of the time, that talking is done at the bar or merch table. The quickest way to fatigue yourself vocally is usually from talking loudly over background music or noise. If you’re running your merch table, try to set it up where there isn’t a ton of background noise. If you’re not, do meet and greets backstage or somewhere less loud.
3. Stay Organized
There are tons of cool tools nowadays that can keep everything from accounting to personnel management nice and neat. Most of them are within the app store, making tour management a pocket-reach away. I use MileIQ to track business miles on the road that make tax season less of a nightmare. I also use GoogleDocs for all Day Sheets. You can update any changes in real-time, and invite the necessary personnel to view them.
4. Rituals
If you’re working with a band or are a member of a band, pre-show rituals really help. After a long day of travel and most likely something going wrong on-site, re-centering the group is so important. That could be through meditating, a group prayer, or something goofy that you do before you walk on stage. Just helps to remind you why you’re there. There have been multiple shows where we decided to play a game during the show. One was passing a penny around onstage as discreetly as possible so that no one in the audience noticed. It surprisingly keeps you on your toes!
5. Which leads to…
Have fun. At the end of the day, people came to see you be you. When they watch you, they are forgetting about the day they had and the struggles they face. They want you to be good so that they can have a good time. Get out of your head and broke those nerves off by remembering this! And know it’s really hard to have fun if you’re not taking good care of yourself by eating somewhat decently, takin’ it easy with less ratchet nights, and taking as many naps as possible. And, we all know this industry can be tough, but what makes it worth.
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