Safe and Sound in Seoul

We all arrived in Korea and I'm writing from my hotel room at the Kaya Hotel in Seoul. In Michigan it's 12:25 p.m.on Sept 2nd but it's 1:25 a.m. Sept 3rd here here in Korea.

Here's how things are so far.
We all piled into our touring van at about 6:30a.m. on Tuesday Sept 1st. We were all too geeked to sleep and I'm sure no one got more than a couple of hours the night before but we were all in very high spirits and didn't mind the crush of 7 people and their luggage and musical instruments all crammed into a custom van.

We arrived at Detroit Metro about 7:45a.m. and made our way to the counter to get boarding passes and check our extra baggage. The ladies at the Northwest booth were very helpful, especially when we told them it was our first tour for Armed Forces Entertainment. They got us checked in in record time. When I tried to use our baggage voucher to cover the checked bags the lady in charge said, "Oh, no you don't need that. We're owned by Delta so they are allowing 2 checked bags with no fee per person, plus two carry on bags." COOL! That shaved an hour off. With that all taken care of we had time to grab breakfast before the 10:25 flight to Chicago O'Hare. On the road "FOOD IS SLEEP." If you can't get sleep, make sure you can get a good meal to keep your energy up.

We left for O'Hare on time and made Chicago in 44 minutes. Once there we had a 2-hour layover before leaving on a 747 direct to Incheon, South Korea. Our Korean Air flight left O'Hare at 12:35 p.m. We had a 13-hour non stop flight and I've gotta say the Korean Air folks really did a good job of taking care of us. The courtesy and level of attention to our needs was excellent.

We landed in Incheon at 3:35pm on Sept 2nd. We had to pass through a health department inspection and fill out paperwork. They're very uptight about the swine flu thing that's developing in America so we all had to get a cursory look over before we could move on to customs. After more lines and more paperwork we were all finally in the country and made our way to baggage. My first (and hopefully only) major bummer on the tour awaited me there.

I'm always leery of checking my guitars but most airlines have changed their rules regarding carrying them on board with you. All our instruments arrived and as we looked over them everything seemed fine until I got to the case holding my American Standard Fender Stratocaster. The handle was ripped off on one side - I mean the metal hinge was ripped in two, not the plastic handle. The entire front quarter by the head stock was cracked and broken. This is a hard shell case and the outer shell has been compressed so hard that it popped out of the metal molding that runs all the way around the case. Something extremely heavy was dropped on my guitar!
I threw the case open and expected to find a broken neck but the molded interior held! Thank God.
I don't know if the Detroit guys did this or if the Korean Air guys did but after weighing the time and hassle of trying to file a claim and NOBODY speaking english and me not knowing Korean I sealed it up and stacked it on the dolly cart. *Sigh* I will be buying steel flight cases before we go to Europe next year.

We met our POC (Point of Contact) she was a very friendly lady named Shirley and she motioned for us with a sign saying Armed Forces Entertainment welcomes the Rusty Wright Band. We all made our way outside and began loading our gear and luggage into the back of a small travel bus. It's a 10-seater with a large bay in the back for gear. After a few "short bus" jokes we all settled into the plush seats. The air conditioning was a relief since it was 81 degrees when we arrived and they expect sun and high temps for the whole week. Shirley introduced us to Mr. Yi who will be our bus driver for our tour in Korea. We also have another driver who we meet tomorrow when we pick up the equipment truck and head to Kunsan airbase.

By the time we reached the hotel we were ALL pretty crispy. We had plans of going out to get dinner but once everyone got into their rooms they all just posted a few things on Facebook and fell down and have been sleeping since. Laurie & I managed to get cleaned up and headed out to see what was available for dinner.

Seoul is one of the largest cities in the world so it reminds me of New York City - except the streets are lined with small shops and restaurants with their wares all on display right on the sidewalk. The smells of all these places was incredible. We settled on the Korean version of a steak house and had a Singapore sling and a screwdriver with our dinner to unwind, and then headed back to get some sleep.

Tomorrow or today rather, will be our first show day so we are doing our best to revamp the body clock to be on Korean time.

Time to catch a few more Zzzz's.

Next stop: Kunsan Air Force base.

Rusty

8 Days & counting

Only 8 days until we leave for Incheon South Korea as part of our 14 day Armed Forces Entertainment Tour. Everyone is extremely "stoked" about going and we've been getting emails from service men at some of the stops telling us how much they are looking forward to us playing. Looks like many have been listening to us online and watching our youtube videos.

One man even asked if he could sit in at the concert at Chinhae. Well, heck yea you can.
If he's going to put his life in service to our country then the very least I can do is play some music with him. I think it will be a lot of fun.

We played the Genesee County Fair last Saturday and had a smokin set. It's the show we plan on using at the festivals in Korea and Japan and it was a great chance to gauge the impact it will have on the audience. Well if the folks at GCF are willing to give a standing O in a beer tent then the men and women in Korea and Japan are gonna lose their FRIGGIN MINDS!!! LOL!

We were told by several podcasters that they were getting requests for a wild guitar instrumental we do called Hell On My Heels. One Marine company in Fellujia made it their song to ramp up to as they headed out on patrol outside the Green Zone.

Can you imagine? RWB blasting at full volume through the trucks and humvees as these guys going roaring out of the gates. WOW, It's like something out of Apocalypse Now! LOL!

I can't wait to play it live especially at Fujifest in Japan. Evidently the Marines (several thousand of them) Don't have facilities for entertainment and such at the base in Okinawa so they ferry them over to Fuji Japan for the special events. Those "Jarheads" as they are called will just LOVE our kind of in your face, guitar driven music.

This is not only a great honor but the adventure of a lifetime for a group of musicians from Michigan. I can't wait to "spread the love".
Stay tuned to the RWB Blog for info, daily reports from the field and pics and video of our travels.
8 days and counting...

Rusty

RWB To Tour The Pacific in September!

We were pretty proud to be accepted by Armed Forces Entertainment to entertain the Troops and families overseas but we never dreamed we'd get a tour so fast.
We've accepted a 14 day tour of South Korea and Japan September 1 through the 14th.
We'll do 6 shows in 6 cities in South Korea then fly to Tokyo Japan for 3 shows ending with the "Fujifest" at Camp Fuji in front of thousands of Marines from Okinawa!

But then on top of that we were offered the endorsement of the BLUZAPALOOZA folks so we are officially listed as BLUZAPALOOZA IV! LOL!
It's an incredible honor to play for the folks who put their lives on the line and it's also an honor to be associated with the Bluzapalooza organization.

We intend on taking lots of pics, video and blogging daily through the Bluzapalooza site and our own.
Sign up for our email list as well to get all the info on our big adventure. We can't wait!
Rusty