Getting a band, crew, family, and a shipping container full of equipment from America to Europe via Airlines is no easy task. Luckily, James Taylor had a solution for making the trip more productive and relaxing: put everyone on a transcontinental cruise!
“A big part of a European tour is to get everybody over,” Taylor told USA Today. “It was an idea I had had for a long time.”
Taylor played two concerts to standing-room-only crowds aboard Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 in exchange for transporting his crew and equipment. In all, the group needed 17 cabins and plenty of storage space.
The band also used the voyage as a warm-up for their European tour, and rehearsed (privately) for around 6 hours a day.
Taylor said the auditorium they performed in was top notch, too. “It was a very comfortable room,” he says. “The sound was excellent, and the soundboard and lighting set-up were really state-of-the-art.”
After his performances, James Taylor remains one of the biggest-named headliners every to play on a passenger ship.