Thursday

Drive 4 hours to Baltimore, crash at a Super 8 a couple miles from the airport...some very strange people staying at this hotel...

Friday

Get up at 4 am EST, stumble to the airport. Catch our 6:25 am flight to Philadelphia...flight lasts all of 20 minutes....hour and a half layover in Philly...kill time sitting in a bar in the airport, watching a very attractive bartender, wishing she could be a flyer girl for the weekend....eventually take off again, this time for Phoenix...4 hour flight, we sleep most of the way...land in Phoenix, pick up baggage...

Head to pick up rental car...they offer us an upgrade from a subcompact to a midsize for an extra $5...we take it, and end up in a brand new black '98 Mustang with 1000 miles on it...head to the venue, it's now about 11 am....hook up Jeff with a Working Pass, catch up with the Swede, unload a stock of porn on him, he is grateful...basically help out with a bunch of stuff all around the venue for a few hours...Jeff drives the German Euro trash out to a computer store to buy a cheap laptop, it ends up taking them 3 hours...I get asked to do an interview on a local radio station...all goes well until I tell the guy on the air that I'm not on the crew...bring the flyer people in and get them set up...finally catch up with the other Mad guys...run the booth for a while, help the Swede escort all the Clubbers to the Pre-Show meet-n-greet with the band...Jason and James show up, as usual... Lars sneaks by wearing a hat, going unnoticed by everyone as he returns from his jog...Kirk walks by and gets sucked into participating... show eventually starts...just wander around, taking in the sights... witness a guy about as beat up as I've ever seen at a show...entire head wrapped in bloody bandages, ribs taped, and one arm in a sling... head to After Show, it takes quite a while for Jason to make his appearance, but he patiently talks with everyone eventually...we set out for Las Vegas around 1 am (?)...drive about 3 hours to Kingman or Kingport orsomething like that out in the middle of the desert, crash around 5 am...we've now been up for about 28 hours straight...

Saturday

Get up around 10:30, continue on towards Vegas...cross the Hoover dam at the border, that place is awesome...

reach the venue in Vegas around 12:30 or so...tonight is a general admission show in a baseball stadium... head in and get Jeff a pass, do the usual pre-show setting up routine... struggle for about an hour getting the MetOnTour banner hung perfectly high up on the lighting tower...wouldn't want the Swede to be disappointed in us...I take the Swede and Ben, one of the lighting crew, downtown in the 'stang for a quick gamble and some website pictures...we get to New York-New York with about 5 minutes to hang out...

the Swede takes a quick picture of the casino floor, then realizes his batteries are dead...boy, I'd like to smack that boy all the way back to his own country...I throw a few quarters in the slots, and the Swede manages to lose $60 on one spin of the roulette wheel...we've got all of 25 minutes now to make it across town through traffic and back to the venue before doors open, or there's gonna be a lot of PO'ed Club members...my skillfully trained MetOnTour driving abilities get us back with about 2 minutes to spare...run the booth for a while...help escort folks to the Pre-Show again...the band is late arriving tonight...James and Jason do the usual signing/picture thing with everyone... Jeff, Robert, and I film the show from the lighting tower, one camera for the whole show, and another for each of the pyros...outstanding view of all of the lovely females, who love to wave up at us...no After Show tonight ( hmm, I wonder why!)...Jeff and I head out for San Diego around 12...after about 30 minutes, we stop at a Burger King for food, only to find out it's in the middle of a giant casino...we eat, then spend about 20 minutes gambling... continue on to Cali...pull over at a hotel just south of L.A. around 5:30 in the morning and crash hard...

Sunday-Monday-Tuesday

Get up around 11, and finish the last 45 minutes or so to San Diego...brand new venue, but it's in the middle of nowhere, about 3 miles from the Mexican border...get Jeff a pass, and do the daily setting up ritual...a lot more chicks at this show than the last two, but still nothing will ever top Texxxas... do the usual booth-thing, then the Pre-Show...glad to get away from the booth, where Jeff and Mirko are dealing with a drunken psychopath...James and Jason do thePre-Show...head back out and talk to some chicks for a while...we got some good-looking flyer girls tonight, but they are very cold...must have been lesbians I guess...this prompts Robert to later state the quote of the weekend: "Not all flyer girls can be good flyer girls..."....head in to Production just as Jerry is finishing up his set... hook up with the Swede, and we get set up with our camera on stage right behind Gio...this is Jeff's first time watching a show from on stage, so he's pretty stoked...about 35 minutes into the show, the battery cuts out...way to go, Swede! ...local security is horrible tonight...one kid gets up onto the far wing of the stage and actually goes unnoticed for about 10 seconds...he is soon pummeled by Zach, Graham, and Gio all at once though...winds up taking quite a beating... Jerry joins the boys on stage for Four Horsemen...after the show, we head onto the Swede's bus to kick back and check out the video footage from the night... the camera right behind Lars' head turned out great...head to After Show and hang with the Mad guys one last time...Jason comes out eventually, then we all go our separate ways....Jeff and I head out for Phoenix, one LONG drive when you start out at 1:30 in the morning...sometime during Jeff's shift, I wake up to see that we're at a drug checkpoint in the middle of the desert..."Where are you guys coming from?"..."A Metallica concert..."..."What's in the trunk?"... "Clothes..."..."Oh, ok. How was the show?".....continue on, and reach Phoenix just after sunrise...grub at a McDonald's and return the 'stang to the rental car place...check in for our flight, and sleep in the terminal for about 4 hours... board the plane eventually...for some strange reason, the stewardesses think we're part of the road crew, and we get double meals, etc....pretty cool...land in Philly again 4 hours later, with another 1.5 hour layover...take in some Monday night football for a while, then we take off for Baltimore...we got some new stewardesses for this flight, and they also ask if we're on the Metallica crew...the last crew must have said something to them on their way out...land after 30 minutes or so, get the baggage, and drive off towards home...finally get home 4 hours later around 2:30 or so...