Back Out There.


After a month or so at home it’s time to go back out on tour. Albert and the band are in LA and I go to meet them there so we can all fly to Tokyo together. Sounds easy on paper, right?

At JFK, on the day after the Notheast Blizzard, the airport isn’t functioning at 100% yet. My 9AM flight is delayed (after we board, of course). I’m grateful, because so many flights were cancelled the previous day the standby list for my flight is seventy-one names long.

We sit at the gate for a couple of hours while the pilot waits to get the all clear from the tower. The Port Authority were still trying to clear ice from the runway and as our aircraft was full we apparently needed the entire runway to take off from. By 11:30 we pull away from the gate to get de-iced. Then we return to the gate. There’s a problem with an engine. (It's a drag but I'd rather they find out while we're driving and not flying...)

We’re told we can get off while they research the problem. When I come back with a coffee we’re told we’re changing planes. I get my stuff and go to the new gate where other passengers are being removed from another flight – allegedly to accommodate us. No one knows what is going on. So many flights have been cancelled at JFK that terminal is packed an people are getting upset and huge shouting matches are happening at other gates. I call our travel agent, there are no other flights available to LA from the New York area until Sunday. Everyone who can call someone gets the same news. No flights anywhere.

Eventually, two hours later, we board our original plane. The fuel valve problem is fixed. At 3PM it looks like we’re about to take-off when a Gate Agent comes up to me and tells me to get my stuff and get off the plane.
-No.
-Mr Priest, you need to get your things and get off the plane
-Why?
-It’s from the captain.
-So? Why?
-We need your seat to send crew back to LA
-No. I have to go to LA.
-You have standby seats and we need them.
-No I don’t.
-Sir. Get your bags and get off the plane.
-I don’t have a standby ticket. I have a regular ticket. I bought this seat.
-Sir you need to get your bags and get off the plane.
-I also have seven passports for seven people flying to Tokyo from LAX tomorrow morning and if I don’t get this flight I don’t get there then they don’t go to Tokyo and we cancel a concert tour.
-Sir you need to get your bags...

After another five minutes of this, me and the guy next to me (he was asked to leave too), were told to sit back down, it was okay. Not a word of explanation or apology. Not that I’d planned to leave until security were called. The passport / Tokyo part of the equation was a fact and I wasn’t going to get off that plane unless someone with the authority to arrest me was asking me to move.

But after 6 1/2 hours, I didn’t care--I had to get to LA on that flight. There were no other alternatives. I'd seen flight after flight cancelled during my two hours of waiting inside the terminal. The place was in chaos. No one knew what was going on.

Eventually I got to LA – seven hours late. Just enough time to eat and go to bed.

Personally I think it’s a sign (Along with my head injury in Nottingham and my stolen luggage in Vancouver) that I shouldn't be on tour anymore.