Chick Corea - Notes From the Road

Ready to eat…or maybe not. Read on.

First, a plea to any hotel manager on my tour itinerary that might stumble across this note: Please feed the hungry musicians! And the way you can do this is to keep your restaurant open at the times when we’re likely to want something to eat.

It goes like this. Play the gig in City A; get to sleep anywhere from midnight to 3am. Get up early in the morning for packing and the half-hour journey to the airport; survive as you can inside “The Black Hole” (as we Touring Guys tenderly call airports and airplanes); arrive in the next city—City B—in the early afternoon; collect the luggage at “Terminal Baggage Claim” (another deadly disease); take another half-hour drive to the City B Hotel (which is now the This City Hotel). Arrive at hotel in mid- or late afternoon, just in time for the hotel restaurant’s lunch time to end, with no food in sight until the restaurant’s dinner time—which is likely to be as late as 6 or 7 pm (in Spain, more like 8 or 9 pm). Solution: go on the Touring Guy’s famous “Search For Food” and end up with the usual burnt offerings of pizza and beer. Stay on your diet and refuse to accept this Food For Young People; eat a health bar you brought with you and wait for the Food at the Gig after the Sound Check.

Eat the Gig Food, play the concert, and then get back to the hotel in time for the hotel restaurant to be closed. Try room service and enjoy some more stale pizza and a dry chicken breast with no mayonnaise.

Hey, it’s really not all that horrible—just kidding—and often it’s really cool (I’m writing this while still trapped heading through the Black Hole on my way home).

Taking a photo of photographers taking a photo of me

But sarcasm aside, the real reward is the of fun playing on stage and seeing the musicians and the audience all having a good time—and me, too. This is true.