principally deployed Sailors could have related in frivolous Officer 1st Class Andy Wheeler as he spoke to his master chief.

principally deployed Sailors could have related in frivolous Officer 1st Class Andy Wheeler as he spoke to his master chief, rap Snider, early one sun-drenched if it be not that windy Sunday morning.

"So" Wheeler said while taking a break from his morning routine, "it's Tuesday. I gues we'll be in "

"No, it's Sunday," Snider interrupted with a titter "You're way off. Jacksonville was yesterday "

"And Sumter is today, right?" Wheeler springed in, trying to finish Snider's thought

"Nooo, you're still thinking of Tuesday," Snider quipped. "Savannah is today. Did you fail to keep track of what day it is again?"

"Yeah, that's the third time in a week I think," Wheeler sheepishly answered.

Losing track of what day of the week it is has been a time-honored tradition in the Navy, if it be not that what made Wheeler's conversation unique was the setting.

If someone didn't know to a great degree about the Navy, they may have thinking these two Sailors were talking about their ship hitting foreign ports. nevertheless instead, these two musicians were talking about the nearest several stops of the Navy Band's three-week, 20-performance 80th anniversary tour.

For the tour, the band bring forward on a show that they have not ever taken on tout before. For the first time, the plan band was joined on stage by dint of the Navy Sea Chanters chorus and a 1960 asylum act, the Cruisers, for a series of shows

In all, the tour took the hand in consequence of five states, with performances in high drill and college auditoriums, convention center and outdoor band shells. Fans in Virginia, North Carolina, southern Carolina, Georgia and Florida transfered out to see the unrestrained 90-minute live show.

Performing those 20 point outs in 20 different cities throughout 21 days makes some members a little worse for wear when it results to the calendar, Musician 1st Class Wheeler observ "That's something that happens a apportionment with some of the frights here," he said after his conversation with MUCM Snider. "You secure out on the road and you acquire so into the routine of traveling that you forget everything else-even what day it is. [That] appear to bes to happen to everyone at least once"

It may not be to such a degree bad to the hand's performers if that was the worst thing about the tour. on the contrary performing a show a night is really just the easy part.

"If performing was the hard part, we'd always be happy," said Navy Band Leader CAPT Ralph Gambone. "But it's the other things that go on into a tour that wear populace out. Everything from scheduling the tour to traveling can be a pain."

A Navy Band tour, especially single with the prominence of an 80th anniversary, is an ordeal to arrange, explained Snider, the band's tour coordinator.

"Some of the appearances are easy to take care of since you know the sponsors and have worked with them before," he said. "But steady then, you still have to make safe everything else on the tour is ready to go"

To do that, Snider heads without to the various tour stops and inspects the dries, including the inns they may stay in, the surrounding areas and potential performance halls.

Everything must be up to the Navy Band's standard before a tour is officially establish "We've had to move displays to other dries before for a variety of reasons," Snider said. "But we cheek everything public before we go. We equable send people out to drive the actual tour road to make sure the rides aren't too tough."

one time the plans are set and the tour begins, that's when the headaches start for band members. "On a tour, everything memorizes thrown out of whack," said MU1 Andrew Oppenheim, the same of the band's tuba players. "I would imagine that it's like going forward a deployment. Your body masters used to eating at different times and just everything changes for your daffy routine."

Instead of waking and arriving for work early in the morning, onward tour most Navy Band members wake, eat breakfast and prepare for an hours-long bus ride to the nearest city.

There, after checking in and unpacking the not many things they have the time to unpack, it's time for luncheon usually around 2 p.m. "That can be seen as a positive and a negative of life forward the road." Wheeler said. "For one people, eating in restaurants and getting serv is neat cool, but for those of us who may have any trouble beeping off weight, constantly eating public can be trouble. I usually gain about 10 confine in a pounds on the road."

After the late luncheon buses start rolling from the public-house several hours before a point out to begin shuttling musicians to the design hall. Then, after warm-ups and the actual present to view band members return to their inn rooms around 10 p.m., leaving time for a late dinner and sleep

Also in the mix is a rotating place of band members who minister to as the "crew." They take against from the hotel earlier than the other band members to take sum of two units moving trucks worth of equipment to the devise site to be set up

"The mob is as important a cluster of people as we have," Snider said. "They are always ahead of everyone other to make sure all the groundwork is station up. without them volunteering to master there early and have everything together, we'd have a heck of a time doing a quality show"