So, one of our tours had one of the rare events where a road guy had an emergency surgery, and the tour was missing a guy (in this case, the drum tech). It reminds me of how often I am asked what happens when we get sick.

The short answer is: nothing. You do your job.

What if one gets really, really sick? You still do your job.

I have always had trouble convincing people I wasn't exaggerating when I have said I have never had a sick day, once, in my life. That's not to say I haven't been sick: I've been really sick, but there are no 'sick-days' in rock, excepting only hospitalization.

I have run shows throwing up between lighting ques with food poisoning.

I have run a show from FOH with earplugs and sunglasses in blinding pain  while simultaneously throwing up from the severity of the migraine, with a doctor waiting backstage with a syringe of medication he couldn't give me before the show because it would incapacitate me for the performance.

I have run shows with the flu, bronchitis (that one happens annually, in fact), pneumonia, diarrhea (don't ask details: you really don't want to know), and every cold known to man. I might have had plague and bird flu, too, I dunno. I have worked on crutches and with sprains, pulls, tears, and bruises. I have often worked in pain when I has no idea what was wrong with me. I have had back problems requiring a therapist on site every day for a spell. I have a friend who worked...wait for it...with a pulmonary embolism, while on the blood thinner coumadin, which requires all KINDS of special stuff, most notably that 4 times a week  one has to make ones' way to a health facility to have bloods drawn so the doctors can adjust the dosage on a 48 hour basis. That particular run began with having to  daily inject with low-dosage heparin..that's right, a needle, in the stomach. All this was to prevent a blood clot from killing me...ah, my friend. Not me. I have another friend who must inject insulin several times a day. You get the idea.

But no one, NO ONE, gets a day off. If you are sick enough to go to the hospital, you can stop working, but that's it. If the hospital releases you, back to work you go. Guys come back from the hospital with punctures, stitches, possible mild heart attacks, electrocutions... and they sure don't get days off from work.

If the hospital doesn't release you, you are probably out a job because someone has to do the job, and no tour has 'spare' roadies. Someone else will be hired. That's the reality of life out here.

Think about what it would take you to have to drag yourself out of your bed (bunk) as sick as ever you've been, because your job had to be done, and no one else could do it. Tough to imagine, right?

So what happened with the drum tech? He was lucky. Two other guys on the rew could (together) figure out the drum kit from the photos that every tour takes for just such emergencies. Some jobs can be covered for a day or two by someone else. For example, every tour has several guitar  and bass techs, so if one of them takes a trip to the ER, the other can cover the gig (if the first guy is around to answer questions on the phone), but it's tough. Likewise, the drum gig got covered, but it wasn't flawless. Far from it. There's still no word on when he will be allowed to fly, so no one really knows what's happening.

Some jobs are a more serious problem for a tour, notably the three console positions. You just better hope there's a local guy who is really, really good on hand, and that your three engineers have professionally documented their gigs. And if your truck driver is hospitalized en route to the next gig? That's a show stopper until another driver is found.

All in all, it's a scary thing when a guy goes missing, and getting the show done can be very touch-and-go.

About that naive 'The show must go on' thing? Mostly, it does, but very rarely, it doesn't. And quality is tough to measure, but we all know there're Shows and then there are just shows. And the punter universe will never know if all those shows cancelled for 'band illness' are really band illness or...something else.

Here's to your crew staying healthy this summer.