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SummerfestOn the tour bus with Candlebox Candlebox Rocks SummerfestBy George Mallet
MILWAUKEE - From the outside Candlebox’s massive Prevost tour bus is an impressive vessel. One imagines posh quarters within. Perhaps there are king-sized beds or a hot tub. That isn’t how founding member Kevin Martin characterizes life jammed on a tour bus with nine other guys.
“You got a lot of bad food and a lot of stinky socks,” he says seated in the rear of the big bus. “There’s one bathroom to share for ten people.”
Fact is, most of the bus's fuselage is lined with bunks. There is clutter everywhere. A television photographer barely has room to turn around within.
Martin's wife recently gave birth to a baby and his 40th birthday is fast approaching. Life on the road takes a toll on a family man approaching middle age. Still, Martin says the shows remain fun.
“We’ve had a song that’s been paying our rent for 16 years,” Martin says referring to the band’s mega-hit Far Behind. “Every single night we play it, it’s the same thing, the same people singing the song right back to you. That kind of makes it worth it.”
That affection for the live show is a two way street. A large contingent of Candlebox fans showed up for Monday’s show seven hours before the rockers took the stage.
“I got here at three,” Kelly Kennedy says as she sits in her front row seat with three hours still to go before the ten o'clock show. When asked if she might be willing to give up that cherished seat she says, “no.”
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