Packing: for women on the road, its an art form

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Time to pack again. As Confessions of a Shopoholic streams on the lap top, I find myself once again staring into an empty suitcase wondering what I should bring with me for the next four weeks on the road. My first tour was ridiculous, I think I had four suitcases of varying sizes. What respectable girl wouldn’t bring everything just short of a evening dress with her for a six week voyage. Except I wasn’t boarding Crystal Cruise lines, I was going to be living in a tour bus with 9 other road warriors on the Linkin Park Projekt Revolution Tour.

Have you been to a summer rock festival lately? Do you see the guys on stage changing the gear between sets, those are my peers, they are typically male, gruff, and have one commonality that links them as a pack: they wear all black; It’s a uniform. Being completely against uniforms since the seventh grade when I had a school wide petition signed to ban them, I typically am not in favor of homogenized dress codes. I'm not into khakis, "casual Fridays" and I don’t do the all black thing. But that gets rather complicated when your working on the road. Here are these other roadies, with tiny little suitcases that hold three pairs of black shorts, one pair of black work shoes, four black t shirts and a tooth brush, and that’s all they need! Sure they do laundry every four days but its free and they could care less. How do you live like that? So back to my first tour, here I come, hauling what could be described as a wardrobe for  a family of five. I've got everything from galoshes to a bathrobe, and don’t even get me started on the hair products and beauty regime. It was hysterical. I quickly found out, by way of much teasing, that three quarters of what I brought was hindered completely useless. As a friend explained early on “whats the most useless thing on tour? A white t shirt” It gets filthy! Unless you want to spend the few precious hours you have in a hotel room applying shout it out to your camisole, get rid of it!

Trials and tribulations are the way of the road, but again, I find myself, three years and a bunch of tours later, standing over my suitcase wondering what to do what to do. What mood will I be in for the next four weeks? What??? Did I really just say that? Sounds ridiculous right? Hence the ridiculousness in trying to plan a wardrobe for touring.  First you have to take into account the clientele: Are you on a rock tour? A pop tour? A metal tour? What will the crew be like? Do you bring your favorite Journey sweatshirt that you love to wear off the shoulder or will that cause certain death to your reputation if Dave Mustane ever glimpses it. What about that cute polka dotted wrap dress you love in the summer? Are you going to be exalted by a gaggle of gay male dancers  for wearing it, or shunned by the uber cool Radiohead/Sonic Youth/Pavement fans that currently make up most of the ticket buyers. See, I don’t want to sound like my style decisions come down to the surrounding environment, but once you get laughed out of and locked out of, a production office, for wearing red 42” bell bottoms, you start to consider the company you keep.

So this time it’s an alternative rock band, who just garnered themselves a VMA, and are the reigning kings of "Nu Metal" in the music world. I do meet and greets with this band every night, we interact, I interface with their management, I greet their fans, I represent the band and my company…and myself, so the question is…what side of Cory do I want to show this tour?

It sounds shallow and transparent, and at times it is, but I see it as wearing armor going into a battle. Do you wear blue jeans and a t shirt when everyone else is dressed in black leather and lace? Perhaps. Perhaps this is how I’m feeling these days and that’s what they will get. The whole thing comes down to this moment, because changing my mind on the plane tomorrow is too late. It becomes a very intense exercise of soul searching and organization. I once became so overwhelmed with the experience I said fuck it all to hell, got liquored up and threw whatever I felt like into the bag. Unfortunately that act of bravery slapped me in the face the next morning when I got off the plane, on the other side of the country and realized I’d packed for not only the wrong season, but nothing matched and I’d filled my suitcase half full with underwear and socks.

See, these moments, packing a suitcase, may seem trivial to some, but to others, it becomes a zen-like exercise.

Thankfully throughout my now multiple years of touring and expensive packing, I have whittled the process down from an entire day…er…two days, (there’s the prep day when you do laundry and start to rummage in the back of your closet to make sure you know everything that you own). But now I can accomplish the task in a matter of minutes…ok, an hour. I just don’t care as much anymore. I take pieces that are easy to wash, don’t need to be ironed, go with everything and basically work, add a couple belts, hats and scarves. Throw in a small bag of jewelry and save enough space for the hair dryer, flat iron and paddle brush. You wear jeans on the plane because each pair weighs roughly two pounds, (you learn that when you’re trying desperately to get your bag under 50 lbs at the united check in counter, while God and everyone is staring at your personal articles spilling out everywhere as you transfer things to your carry on).

So there you have it. Tour Packing 101.  So although I still don’t subscribe to the all-black method of tour wear, I have paired it down to suit a reasonable and comfortable style that allows me to be who I am, while not being obnoxious.

Here’s to 49.9 pounds and a suitcase full of cotton!