I recently just wrapped up my Australian Tour to promote my new album Forbidden Moments and I wanted to share with you, three big lessons that I learned along the way.
If you’re about to go on tour for the first time, or travel away from your home base to perform elsewhere, then these tips are for you. Even if you are not yet touring, I think you’ll find them useful for your regular performances. I’ll go into much more detail in the video below, but here’s a taste of what you’ll find out:
Tip #1 – Insist on rehearsals.
If you are touring with your own band, this doesn’t apply to you as much because (hopefully) you will have rehearsed together heaps and heaps before you go. BUT for singers who travel solo and pick up session musicians local to each city on their tour, a rehearsal should be the first thing on your itinerary – no matter how good the musicians are.
Here’s why:
1. Even super skilled musicians make mistakes if they are playing a new song for the first time. They will play so much better if they know what to expect from you and how you like to run the song. Even if you give them music to follow and have everything written out properly, having a muso with their head buried in the chart rather than looking at you and following your cues on stage is a recipe for disaster.
2. Your responsibility on stage will be tripled. The musos will look to YOU to cue the tempo, cue the solos, tell them how to end the song, etc… so the stress and demands of you will be huge. Plus you have to perform, sing well, interact with the crowd. You just don’t need all that hassle. As a general rule, most singers can do all of the above but from experience I just feel that it is nice to have at least one of the band ready to help you out.
Tip #2 – Don’t take jewel-case CDs
When I had my latest album printed, I decided to go for the hard jewel case CD cover because I know that DJs at radio stations are more likely to spin your tracks if they can easily see the spine on your CD at a glance, BUT when touring, they get cracked in transit.
I put a ‘fragile’ notice on my bag but still ended up with around 30 broken CDs which I couldn’t sell on tour. Yes I could replace the cases later on but I really needed those 30 at the time and missed out on the sales.
Tip #3 – Wear shoes that you have broken in
I bought a pair of uber sparkly shoes that look AMAZING on stage but I only took the one pair because when you’re travelling, there isn’t much room for multiple pairs of shoes. My problem was that by the end of the tour my feet were literally bleeding and covered in blisters. (Ouch!)
Seriously, it was so bad that no bandaid was going to help me. Definitely not good for being on stage.
Here’s the video for all the tips in detail:
If you have any tips about touring that you would like to share with the rest of the community here on Singer’s Secret, please let us know in the comments below.
Love and success,
Nicola x