h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So I'm supposed to be playing in Muskegon, Michigan this weekend. It's about a nine hour drive from here. The bad part (aside from the poor pay) is that everytime I check the weather it gets worse. Apparently there's already well over a foot of snow, the highways have been covered in ice for a week, and the windchill is well below zero. This does not make me excited. It's even worse for the rest of the band, because the van that they drive has no heat and holes in the floorboards. At least some of us get to take my car. Regardless, I don't feel like putting my safety on the line for a show in a small bar that no one goes to. Anyone else ever get in a situation like this?

er... well, we don't have snow here, so no, we've never had to worry about *that* kind of safety over here. the only thing is that our orchestra has no groupies (!!!), which means that every time we go out to perform, we have to move all the instruments ourselves. and we're talking about (among other things) a complete set of timpani, a huge (and very expensive) gong, tubular bells and a hundred thousand-dollar concert grand piano if you're talking about riding in an open lorry with tons of instruments around you, and the possibility of the lorry overturning because of reckless driving, then yeah, it's somewhat worrying...

I understand the fear of careening percusion elements. I've had some classic three stooges style moments involving them in my past. While trying to pull a sousaphone out of our semi during a marching band competition, I was trying to balance on a tractor we used for quick loading and unloading. Snow was blowing in the open door, piling up on the footboards. As I stepped down, I slipped, flew off the tractor, out the door, and dropped the several feet to the ground. I was quickly followed by my sousa, which landed on my chest. Then a pair of cymbals that did further damage by messily breaking my nose.
I hate cymbals.
Footnote to my original post. The van was stolen Thursday morning along with a guitar, amp, 24 ch. soundboard, about twenty mic cables, 6 vocal mics, a kick drum mic, speaker cables and possibly more. I personally am out about a thousand dollars in equipment, and am pretty irate that our fearless leader (and guitar player) apparently left the keys in the van overnight.
And people think musicians have it easy.

I sympathise, really, I do! Today we had this gig outdoors and our music kept getting blown of the stands right in the middle of our songs. It was terrible! My friend bent down to pick his up and his slide fell ouot of his trombone and off the stage. He then had too chase his music which was blowing very rapidly away and by the time he got back we had finished the song. To top this off it all happened in the middle of his solo.

BOB

Never underestimate the value of slide locks! Mind you, there was this one time we were performing for our University's Vice Chancellor, and I accidentally whacked my score (which I was sharing with my partner) off the stand with my trombone slide... All that went through my mind at that time was, Oh Dear.

It happened in the middle of your friend's trombone solo?

Well, sort of. He told me afterwards that he was going for a really low note to finish off with and his slide slipped in his hand, and fell out.

BOB

A ha! So now I see! Yeah, that'll happen. I have to be especially careful, since I'm short, and my arm doesn't *quite* reach the 7th position - I need to use my thumb and forefinger for that.