Daydream XI – CRAZY TOUR STORIES

In this Crazy Tour Stories segment, Tiago Masseti, of the Brazilian progressive/power metal band, Daydream XI, talks about one of their crazy moments from touring. You can check out the feature, after the break.

In 2014, we flew to Miami to play on Progressive Nation at Sea. The invitation came from Mike Portnoy, with a contest where 180 + bands from around the globe submitted just a live performance video and a Facebook page link. Originally there would only be three acts for the remaining spots, but eventually, Mike decided that there were too many good bands and convinced the producers to add another stage to the festival. Daydream XI was called on this second invitation, along with 20 other bands.

The email hit my inbox on the last day of 2013. The show was to be a 50-minute set someday between February 18th and 22nd. As some of you might be aware, getting visas to enter the U.S. being from Brazil is not a quick nor easy process. Being from Porto Alegre, on the far south of Brazil, we had to fly to São Paulo for an interview to prove a lot of things and be allowed to go and play the festival of our dreams. And we had to do this as quickly as possible because the announcements with the new bands needed to be done soon.

We made a long list of not-so-easy-to-do things to make it to the festival like:
– Staying in São Paulo on a friend’s living room (the 4 of us) with two cats, miles away from where our interview was to take place
– Rehearsed more than 30 times in a little less than a month and a half
– Added an Opeth cover to the set a few weeks before the show
– Rehearsed with our guest keyboard player only 4 or 5 times
– Had to rush Jens and the staff at Fascination Street into delivering the master of our debut album before the schedule

(And we are so very thankful for every single person who helped us in all that! <3)
Two days before boarding the cruise, we went to get lunch with a friend in Miami. He took us to this big Chinese bistros chain called PF Chang’s. As expected, we got some fortune cookies after we ate our food. Everyone’s had some cool message about dreams and other beautiful stuff. But mine said: “Face any problem with dignity”. When I read that I said: “vai dar alguma merda” (Portuguese for “some shit will happen”). Strangely, that sentence on the fortune cookie note sounded like something I would say to myself if I knew I was about to face an issue. It felt like a warning.

And there we were, on a long line filled with some of our favorite artists, waiting to board the ship. And the guy responsible for checking our visas said: “You cannot go on board”. That sentence felt like a hammer to the balls and led to excruciating four hours on the port, waiting for the issue to be solved, not knowing if we would be allowed to go on board. Fortunately, we were not the only ones who had issues with the visas. A great band from Israel, called No Reflection, went through the same bump on the road. That surely helped our case.

In the end, everything was solved by the amazing Sixthman crew and we got to experience the best five days of our lives so far. Before we went on stage the next day, Moshe, the singer for No Reflection told me they had a Hebrew saying, “kol akava le’tova”, that means something like “every delay might be for good” in the sense that you might get something better in the future. When we finally came back to Brazil I tattooed Progressive Nation at Sea’s logo along with the Hebrew saying, so that those moments of facing problems with dignity would never be forgotten. And I still carry that fortune cookie note with me, in my wallet.

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