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utensils in dressing rooms and how swamped the dishwashers
are, make it a challenge to get everything packed in a timely
fashion. Eventually, everything is put away and our job is done
in the dining room.
At the same time, the crew in the kitchen is working to get
their equipment clean and packed. On tour, banana boxes are
a hot commodity. All boxed, bagged, and canned goods that are
going on to the next show get packed into banana boxes. They
can also be used as ‘ghetto coolers’: a banana box, a garbage
bag, and ice, hold cold beverages for guys on local crews who
aren’t important enough to merit a real cooler. Anything that
doesn’t have any other home but needs to get on a truck goes
into a banana box. Any food that requires refrigeration stays
behind. At the Gorge, because we had a refrigerator truck, we
put it back into the truck and took it home for ourselves.
By 10:00 p.m. everything is lined up ready to be loaded back
onto the semi-truck. Zach or another crew member stands
inside the truck and calls for the flight cases and equipment by
name as local crew and roadies push each piece onto the truck.
Every piece of catering equipment has a personal name, which
makes loading the truck easier. Zach may call for “Tenzing
Norge“, a fridge, or “Helsinki” a rolling stainless steel triple