Someone named Sam asked: “Dude, what do you do for a living??”
Someone named Tony answers: Have you ever heard of “The Country Bear Jamboree”? They’re a band of audio-animatronic bears that play country music at Disneyworld. Well, I’m the band’s manager. It’s exciting being connected with the music industry, but it can be a headache too.
I have to keep explaining to the promoters and fans that they don’t take requests. The bears put a lot of thought into the set list. They’ve been performing live (sort of) since the 60′s and they know exactly which songs and the exact order they should be played to give the crowd the best show each night. Besides, they are robot bears, and as such, improvised jamming and taking requests is problematic.
Another responsibility of mine is to keep the groupies away from the guys in the band. They tend to attract a lot of confused and misguided furries. Disneyworld is a family friendly venue and you just can’t have women throwing their panties on stage.
A lot of big stars tend to be primadonnas, and the guys in “The Country Bear Jamboree” band are no exceptions. So I have to make sure everything is just right for them or they turn pissy. You sure don’t ever want any bear to become pissy, even if they are just animatronic bears. I even have to make sure that everyone in the band gets at least three animatronic salmon backstage before every show. If they don’t get them they refuse to go onstage.
And if there is an electrical power surge the band could miss a whole week of gigs. When that happens I have to go out on stage and tell the crowd that the bears weren’t going to perform because they are “hibernating” and hope that the audience won ‘t riot and turn it into another Altamont.
So the job keeps me pretty busy.
April 15, 2010 at 5:19 am
Thanks for the edification, I feel much better now.