What is the best and the worst thing about being a tour manager?
Rob Palmen: I think, the best thing is to work with people who want to have a nice day, a concert, you know, everybody is happy [laughs] You work most of the time with people who are happy already and the nicest thing is if you see that everything runs nicely. Everybody in the band is happy, the team that you work with and that there’re people coming in who love the show. That’s my reward. The worst thing, I think, the less hours of sleep. R: is it comfortable in a tour bus? You can sleep well? Rob Palmen: It depends on the bus. Most of the new busses are very good. So that’s no problem actually. The worst thing is if you have to get up in the middle of the night, if you’re crossing a border. In Poland for instance, the customs woke the whole tourbus in the middle of the night. We had to get out. It felt like being treated like a criminal. Then you stand there in the middle of the night, asleep but awake– you feel stupid – and think “What the hell am I doing here?”. R: What’s your favo
