Annie On Tour

Oh how lovely it is to be a woman on tour with the Vai band! I get to live on a tour bus full of boys, share a dressing room full of boys, and perform on stage to an audience full of boys. It's a good thing that I like boys, especially the boys in the Vai band and crew. Being the only girl in the band has taught me some unique life lessons that I would like to share.

1. It IS possible to put on a little black dress in a room full of guys without flashing anything scandalous. My modesty in the high school locker room finally pays off.

2. It takes the perfect pair of heels to rock out on a stage littered with cables and pedal boards. The "prance-test" in the shoe store is embarrassing but crucial.

3. Boys look cute in the morning when they wake up on the bus. I've learned how to pretend that I look cute too.

4. I've learned that the guys in the band don't spare me from teasing just because I'm a girl. They call me "stinky" and are always honest with me.

5. I've learned how to de-odorize a very stinky pair of performance shoes. (See previous lesson)

6. I learned that I need an i-phone. Steve, Mikey, Dave, Paul… I'm jealous.

7. Starbucks. I can't resist the siren call of the two-tailed mermaid and her green ring of fury.** I've also learned that buying Roger (on stage monitors) a medium mocha keeps him from practicing karate moves on me. Mikey's quad grande lattes keep him from killing people.

8. "Meh" is a perfect word. Meh. Meeeeeeeh!

9. Including chocolate in the dressing room rider is absolutely brilliant and necessary. Jeremy concurs.

10. It is good to be a girl in the Vai band. I have fifteen boys that I've come to love and respect like brothers.

** Mikey is not a man to mince words. He coined "the sweet siren call of the two-tailed mermaid and her green ring of fury" before we knew her as anything but "Starbucks".