TOUR MIRACLE: THE IMMORTAL EAR MONITOR

As some of you know, I wear what’s called a wireless ear monitor when I’m singing.  Basically, it feeds my vocal mic into my ear so that I can hear myself above the band.  The earphone plugs into a wireless receiver that I clip onto the back of my pants.   So here’s the miracle:  I can’t tell you how many times I lost this device on one of my nightly journeys into the audience.  You have to picture it: tons of people, most of the time packed together like sardines at the front of the stage, most of the time moving around like maniacs, and my precious little black box somewhere on the floor being kicked around by all those feet.  I’m surprised it survived even once. And yet, each and every time that I returned to the stage and found it missing, it would invariably re-appear in the palm of some outstretched hand and be returned to me without a scratch. All in all I probably lost that thing at about 15 shows, sometimes more than once.   These little receivers aren’t cheap and singing with out one really puts a strain on the old vocal chords.  When you can’t hear yourself it’s very difficult not to compensate in some way and I’ve blown my voice out more than once this way.  What I’m getting at here is that you guys RULE!  I still can’t believe that thing wound up unharmed at the end of the tour.  You have no idea how blown away I was every time I got it back. Losing that receiver was like momentarily losing my voice and every night you guys handed it back to me.  Thank you a trillion times over.

Oh and if your wondering why I didn’t just take it off before leaping into the audience?  Well, sometimes I did, but to be honest, it just never seemed to be the first thing that came to mind when the urge struck to go diving!