What a whirlwind week this has been! Our time on the Backstreet Boys “In A World Like This Tour” has officially begun and what a ride this is going to be!! When I last wrote we had safely arrived in Lisbon, Portugal for our first concert. After driving across parts of Germany, France, Spain, and Portugal, we were ready to do something else for a change – finally play a show!
Show #1 – Campo Pequeno – Lisbon, Portugal
We spent the night in Lisbon at the Turim Alameda Hotel, a very nice, relatively small 4 star hotel near the heart of Lisbon. It was the first real night of sleep we had in a couple of days and we were exhausted. The next morning we had a bit of time to sleep in and eat breakfast as a group downstairs. Thankfully, the hotels in which we have been staying have been providing breakfast for us each morning. For this tour I am the manager of the driving/support team that is traveling along with the band. We transport all of the sound equipment for the group (microphones, in-ear monitors, receivers, cables, etc.), all big bags of luggage, and the merchandise that we sell at each show (now 2 CDs, which you can buy on iTunes 🙂 ) This adds up to a LOT of stuff to load in and out of the van in each city that we stop for a show. Where do we sit? Usually amongst the bags in little pockets of space in our van (when not driving)…not the most glamorous of operations but it gets the job done and feels significantly more gratifying! After breakfast I went with Paul to fuel up the van and then we went to the venue with Greg and Léo, our sound engineer.
The show in Lisbon was at Campo Pequeno, the city’s former bull fighting ring!! Walking into the circular arena was a stunning experience. While the seating capacity (9,000) was on the smaller side for the sites we will play on this tour, you could feel the history as you “entered the ring”. Also let’s not forget that the group’s new album is called “The Good Fight” – appropriate first venue? I think yes. Not only was this our first show, it was also our first taste of what big-time tour life was like. Tour busses, semi trucks full of sound, stage, and lighting equipment, merchandise vans, security guards everywhere…this is the real deal! It was a bit overwhelming at first, but we settled in quickly – there was work to be done.
The Exchange on stage during sound check in Lisbon.
One of my roles on tour is being part of the advance team that arrives to the venue to begin set-up and preparations for the singers who usually arrive a little later on. I am in charge of introducing our band to the local promoter for the venue/city (this is the tour’s contact in each location), determining the location and operation of the merchandise stand, and working with Greg to find the dressing room for our team. To be sure we were ready for whatever the Backstreet Boys’ team needed us to do, we spent a large portion of the first show day at the venue. The team was able to explore the venue a little bit before we sat down for lunch (we have been included on the catering operation for the tour so on show days lunch and dinner are provided for us – it’s extremely nice to have this benefit!)
None of us were quite sure what to expect for the first show. We have all been to big concerts before but never as the performer, so there was lots of anticipation and nervous energy. The planning for this tour has been months in the making but we still had some unknowns in front of us. Would we get a sound check before the show? What is it going to be like to meet these multi-platinum selling artists who were THE entire music world at the turn of the century? What is it going to be like to sing in front of 9,000+ screaming fans? Will they like our music? As you can see – not exactly a chill moment.
As the day wore on we grew more and more comfortable in our role as the opening band for The Backstreet Boys. We all had the privilege of eating dinner with some of BSB, a very surreal experience. People always say that celebrities are just like us, putting their pants on “one leg at a time.” Our experience at dinner confirmed that. These guys are very genuine, asking more about us, what our experiences have been like in music, wishing us a great show, etc. That made sure we were going to have a great night!
Show #2 – Palacio de Vistalegre – Madrid, Spain
With one show under our belts, we were ready to move on to Madrid. The morning after our Lisbon concert I was up early to take the guys to the airport. After returning to the hotel we loaded the luggage, sound equipment, and ourselves and got on the road back to Spain. Along our drive we happen upon a slow-down on the highway just after crossing the Spanish border. Two police cars pull out in front of both lanes of traffic, causing the 8-10 other cars and us to slow down to a stop. The officer tells us in Spanish to wait here for 5 minutes. Ahead we see more officers setting up a checkpoint. We pull forward a little more and the police tell us to pull over to the side. Soon we are asked to produce our passports and exit the vehicle. At this point, about a million things are racing through my mind. Chief among them, “Did we finally get in trouble for not paying those automatic tolls that we couldn’t pay without an EZPass?” We get out of the van and the officers begin to go through the car, their sniffing dog checking out every nook and cranny. Traveling with us on this tour are Michael and Addy, two extremely talented photographers/videographers from Ximpix, a production company in Germany. Addy, in his best attempt to defuse a potentially sticky situation, flashed his backstage access badge from our concert tour. Apparently one of the officers thought some of us were members of BSB! We were not going to argue with their assumption, as they seemed to be extremely friendly after learning this. Then, Addy deftly asked the police officers if we could take a picture with them to document the moment. They were more than willing to oblige. Here is the ridiculous result!
We arrived in Madrid about 6 hours later, making our way through the narrow streets of the capital to our hotel. Here’s where I would like to take a moment to thank the hotel managers and employees that we have encountered on our tour so far. These men and women have gone out of their way to make our stays as comfortable and easy as possible. A group of 12 20-something males isn’t always the easiest bunch to put up with, but these individuals have passed with flying colors!
Following the Madrid show, we had the chance to meet up with a good friend, fellow YJ, and former roommate of Aaron’s, Enrique. I met Enrique when he came to Rochester from Granda, Spain as a Masters student at the Eastman School of Music and soon after joined the YellowJackets. His soaring tenor voice has led him to great things as he now stars in productions for the Madrid Opera. Aaron, Jamal, Leo (our sound engineer), Enrique, and I went out for a quick drink after getting back to the hotel, ironically to an Irish pub. It was good to catch up with an old friend!
Show #3 – Palau Sant Jordi Club – Barcelona, Spain
Despite being up late the night before, I pulled/volunteered for the first driving shift to Barcelona. Because we are driving so much on this trip, we all are having to increase our amount of driving to make things as easy as possible on one another. I took this drive as a personal challenge to drive the entire way and only stop once for gas. I know…I’m weird. It was hard to get back in the car, however, as we were treated to a spectacular sunrise in Central Spain as we drove towards Catalonia.
We arrived in Barcelona (after crossing the Prime Meridian on our drive), dropped the bags off at the hotel, and went to the airport to pick up the band. Apparently Barcelona doesn’t have a system where normal cars can pull up to the terminal and pick up arriving passengers. This must have caused me to circle at least 3 times before finally settling on a bus lane for parking and sending Addy in to get the guys. We returned to the hotel, rested for a bit, then set off to the venue.
Palau Sant Jordi is situated on the city’s southern side, on a hill that overlooks part of the downtown area. The arena itself is fairly large, with capacity for about 24,000 people at musical events. However, this is not where we performed…we were in the “Club” portion of the complex. Directly next to the former Handball/Volleyball/Gymnastics home of the 1992 Olympics is the smaller, standing-only venue where our concert was held. Each crowd we perform for is different. Their positioning in relation to the stage is critical to their engagement in the opening moments of The Exchange’s set. I believe this has nothing to do with the band and everything to do with the way the arena is prepared. Even the best band in the world would benefit from having the fans on the floor closer to the stage and standing rather than in seats (More about the “seat” thing in the Milan section). Because the Barcelona venue was a standing-only set-up, I feel that the energy was greater than those with seats around. The fans were closer and got to experience the energy that The Exchange emits during their performances, one of their best traits as a band.
My favorite part about Barcelona was the sightseeing that we got to do before the show and the next morning before heading to Milan. As I mentioned, the Palau Sant Jordi is part of the Olympic Ring of stadiums and arenas that served as the central plaza during the 1992 games. In this ring are the main Estadi Olímpic de Montjuïc Stadium (sight of the opening ceremonies), Palau Sant Jordi, main swimming pools, baseball stadium, and the Montjuïc Communications Tower that was built to transmit the television coverage of the games. The next day I went with Michael and Addy (the videographers), Chris, and Richard to see a few places around town. We stopped at La Sagrada Familia, an extremely ornate and un-finished church designed by Antoni Gaudí. It was quite beautiful, with a quiet park just outside of the front doors. I’ve heard the inside is very ornate and breathtaking but unfortunately we were parked illegally and couldn’t stay very long. From there we went to Park Güell, a garden complex in a neat, hilly neighborhood of the city. Finally, we swung by Camp Nou, the home of one of the best futbol (soccer) teams in the entire world, FC Barcelona. I wish we could have timed our visit to see a game but knowing that one of the world’s best players (Messi) plays there was pretty special.
Show #4 – Mediolanum Forum – Milan, Italy
The drive from Barcelona to Milan was going to be one of the best of the trip so far. We would be driving along the Spanish, French, and Italian coasts with the Mediterranean Sea, past towns like Monaco, Nice, Cannes, and Torino. A slight problem arose with our plan – we left in the mid-afternoon, causing us to drive past all of these wonderful places in the dark. I’m sure they were there and they were beautiful, but we didn’t get to see any of it! Yet another reason to make the same drive later in life during the daytime.
We arrived in Milan close to 2 AM local time and finally had good WiFi (apparently internet with decent speed and connectivity is a ghost over here…very hard to find!) so we naturally stayed up an extra 2 hours bumming around on our devices.
The next morning Greg and I went to pick up the guys from the Malpensa airport and were treated to a breathtaking view of the Alps lit up by the sun as we drove West from the city. I was driving so I wasn’t able to get a picture. We had another smooth airport pick-up of the team – that’s a huge win in my book considering we don’t have phones that we can call each other on over here – and we were off back to the hotel. The venue was a little bigger than the previous 3 shows (about 14,000 seats). The entire floor was covered in red, plastic-backed chairs and there was a surrounding stadium of seats for additional fans. As I mentioned when talking about Barcelona, this venue was not ideal. Because the fans on the floor were in rows of seats they could not get as close to the stage, tempering some of their energy for our set. Additionally, it seemed as if Italy had lots of rules on how many lights had to be on in the arena in order to allow people to get to their seats. This meant that the entire back 1/3 of the arena was nearly completely lit up like daytime…not ideal for a concert. Naturally, the guys handled it very professionally and still played a kick-ass show (in the same venue that acts like Bruno Mars and Miley Cyrus have performed in previously :D)
On top of the show, it was great that we could welcome some friends, girlfriends, family members, and other guests to Milan to share in this crazy-cool experience we are having. Aaron’s sister Emily was able to come up from Florence with a friend, where they are studying. Richard’s girlfriend came to see the show as well, along with other friends from Germany. Seeing their reaction to the show makes this all worth it. I just wish more of you could join us to see how amazing this is! Seeing The Exchange perform their music (both covers and the original tunes from their brand new album) in front of so many cheering fans has been one of the coolest experiences of my life. Having known/worked/sung with Aaron and Jamal through our college days in the YellowJackets, I knew this day was coming. Through immense amounts of hard work, these guys, along with Richard, Chris, Fredo, and Matt, have made a name for themselves and this experience on tour is only going to help them grow!
The next day, Greg, Paul, and I spent a couple of hours exploring the city, seeing the Duomo and a few other center city sights. As I have said with every other city, I can’t wait to come back! For the record, the gelato is amazing.
Following Milan, the singers, Matt, and Léo split off to fly to Poland and Russia where they are currently performing until Friday. That means that we 3 have returned to our lovely “home” Europa Park. It will be nice to have a few days of rest before heading back out onto the road for a crazy schedule of driving and shows in March.
I can’t wait to share more of our #exchangeadventures with you all. Thank you so much for reading! If you want to know more about the tour or have special questions as to how all of this works please leave a comment and I will be happy to answer what I can!
– Christopher
Bama Does Europe 
This is really good 🙂 Thank you Chris! 🙂