Over the past couple of years we have had the great fortune to do two tours with the band Safetysuit. Over those two tours they have become one of our favorite bands and some of our very favorite people.

On our last trip together in Asia they were working on finishing up the tracks for their new record. As they were working on the record their label imprint imploded and they were absorbed into their parent label. A lot of times this means big trouble for a band. New staff, new priorities, new cooks in the kitchen… It can get messy.

We could tell they had their worries about the situation… How could they not… But they were also so excited about the music they were getting ready to release… And they deserved to be… The pieces and demos they played for us back then sounded amazing… And they weren’t even done.

After we all got home from Asia, they started working on getting the record out… They would set a release date for it and then the label would push it back… They would set a new one… The label would push it back… (That is also not a very comforting thing for a band in their position)

They were constantly in our thoughts and prayers. They are such a great band and such wonderful people that we really wanted everything to come together for them.

Well, the record finally got it’s digital release last week… It went straight to #2 on the iTunes charts and after a day or so they even bumped Adele’s record off the #1 spot for a while… Which is a gigantic accomplishment… Huge…

The pride and vindication they must have felt after working so long to get that record out… Through all that uncertainty… It must have been incredible.

Well, tonight was their CD release show here in Nashville. It was in a relatively small club so it sold out weeks ago and we’ve been looking forward to it for a while.

We got there early to make sure we could get a good spot… It was packed… Seriously packed… The energy was palpable… It was amazing.

When they finally took the stage the crowd went bananas… They started playing the record down track by track… Killing it the way they always do… And the crowd was eating it up. We’ve seen them a bunch of times from behind the stage, but this was our first time out front with the fans… Man, I didn’t think I could like their show much better than I did… But it happened.

Then all of a sudden, about six songs into the set… Doug, their lead singer made an odd and deliberate run backstage… The lights went down, but you could still make out the faces of the other guys… Something was wrong… After a couple minutes of confusion and on-stage huddling their drummer Tate approached the mic…

Evidently Doug had been really sick all day… He thought he could make it, but he was wrong… He had just made it off stage before collapsing… They were all visibly shaken and concerned… After a couple more minutes Doug made his way back out, supported by their tour manager, to uproarious applause… He made one last attempt to get a song going, but he just didn’t have it in him…

We were on tour a couple years ago with them when the entire tour came down with dysentery… We played three shows with puke bags hidden behind all the amps… These guys are not wusses… So we knew this had to be really bad. You could see it all over his face… He was wrecked. And with tears in his eyes he had to walk away from a packed-to-the-rafters hometown crowd on what should have been the most triumphant and spectacular CD release show… I can’t imagine how hard that must have been. Well, I can… But I don’t want to.

They finally got him off stage, the crowd cheering him along and showing their love the whole way… But the band was still up there… Where can you go from there? All these people have paid to be part of this night, but you have no singer…

After a couple minutes of huddling and head-scratching Tate walked to the mic and asked if the crowd wanted to just sing for Doug… The place went crazy… So Dave, Tate, and Jeremy picked up their gear and finished out the night playing the band’s biggest songs with the crowd and a couple singers from their opening bands belting out every word at the top of their lungs… Holy s*** they have some amazing fans.

I know it’s not what they wanted or how they wanted it to go, but everyone in the room tonight got to be part of something very special. And that’s what they really wanted in the first place. To share something special with the band…

It takes a real band to walk up to the edge of disaster like that during such a huge show, pull it back, and not only salvage it, but leave their fans feeling like they were just a part of something great… No matter how far from the plan it was.

So tonight, like many others, I can honestly say that Safetysuit are my heroes. I just hope they can all see tonight the way their audience did… And we all hope Doug feels better and is back to 11 very soon.

jb

After an amazing three days aboard the Stennis it was finally time to get back to land for our two shows in Bahrain. This was our second time in Bahrain and my first time returning to a foreign country for the second time. (Try and diagram that sentence)

I remember the very first moment I stepped foot in Bahrain… It was a beautiful summer night when the marvelous pressurized door of Boeing 737 swung open to reveal a world I had never dreamed of experiencing… A world where it’s 105 degrees at 10pm on a Tuesday… A world where thinking thoughts is enough to break you into a full-body sweat… A world where… Well… Where it’s really hot.

Much hotter than I imagined… That’s my point.

Anyway…

I had never been to anywhere in the Middle East before… Shocking, I know… I am a drummer after all… But with all that’s happened in America over the last decade or so, I would be lying if I said there wasn’t an odd balancing act between curiosity and apprehension going on inside of me.

Bahrain is an amazing place… It’s viewed as sort of the Las Vegas of the middle east. It’s a predominantly Muslim country, but it is not governed by religious law. You can drink, you can smoke, you can wear western clothes, you can even be Catholic… They don’t care.

And neither do a lot of the Saudis evidently because on the weekends they flood across the bridge to wear jeans, drink beer, eat Kentucky Fried Chicken, and whatever else they want to. The Saudis we were hanging out with in the bar liked to joke that “Allah can’t see across the bridge”. (And in this context, by “Allah”, they mean the head-cracking hand-chopping-off Saudi religious police.)
It’s actually kind of eerie in way when you first start driving around Bahrain because in a lot of ways it looks like you just got off the interstate near a mall in Virginia somewhere… There’s the McDonald’s, there’s the Applebee’s, there’s the TGI Friday’s… The signs are just all in Arabic.

It just goes to prove that literally everyone loves 2-for-1 taquitos and jalapeno poppers.
Our situation in Bahrain was actually very cool… We got to stay in a hotel off base, we got to drink beers with the locals in the bar, we even got to walk around town a bit. My very favorite moment of cross-cultural-mind-bending-ridulousness was when we were out to dinner one night on the first trip and my brain just started buzzing… I had step and back and hit the pause button so I would never forget it… There we were sitting in Bahrain… In a Mexican restaurant… Listening to a Filipino singer… Singing a country song from Nashville… Written by an Australian country singer. BOOM!

I’ll give you a moment to gather your thoughts after that one…

…

However, even with the KFC and widespread western-tolerance, I won’t lie – it’s a little odd the first time you get passed on the sidewalk by a group of women in head-to-toe Burqas… Or see cars drive by with the husbands in the front seat and the wives in the rear… You’re definitely in another part of the world and there’s no way to forget that.
But the beautiful thing about Bahrain is that right behind the group of women in burqas there’s another group decked out in western fashion… And right behind that car is another one with the wife driving and a rosary hanging from the rear view… And it was all fine.

In fact, I even found the attitudes toward Americans to be much better out and about in Bahrain than I did in southern Italy. Which, on one hand, shouldn’t necessarily be surprising… But after watching the news here in America for the last decade, it was.

Not to say that there aren’t religious and political battles being fought in Bahrain… There are.

Our friend Hussein, one of the locals who works on base who escorted us a lot, had to move his kids out of his house and in with relatives because the violence and prejudice had gotten so bad in his neighborhood… You see Hussein is a Muslim… Just not the right kind evidently.

Hussein is Shi’a Muslim, who are the majority in Bahrain. While the King, the royal family, and most of the government are Sunni Muslims… From what I understand it’s a lot like Catholics and Protestants… Same basic religion with some small, but very important differences in interpretation…

But my point is not to devolve in to a Bahrainian civics lesson… My point is that my time in Bahrain gave me a lot of hope. Tolerance and diversity work the same way over there that they do over here. The problem is never really these people or those people… This religion or that religion… It’s with the crazies and the not-crazies.

Crazies are the worst… They always have the loudest voices, the worst ideas, and they’re willing to ruin everything to get them heard.

And the shows were pretty good too… ; )

Now it’s late, I am soap-boxed out, so I will leave you with some pictures and I will bid you good morrow.

Good morrow…

James