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so tired. What I need is the steroids. What I need is speed. What I need is alcohol. What I need is somebody to pat me on the back and tell me some bullshit.”
    The experienced guy says, “It’s OK. It’s five o’clock. Don’t worry about it. Eight o’clock is coming. Don’t touch the steroids. Don’t touch the adrenaline. Don’t need the caffeine.” Then there it is, as always. Eight o’clock, I get up like I know I’m going into the ring.
    The fuckin’ steroids for my vocal chords are always in my bag. In my head I go, “Take it. Take it. Take it.” ‘Cause part of me is saying, “Your chords are shot. You’re tired. You can’t make it through the show. You need them. Take them. Take them.” It’s fear and insecurity fueled by all the adrenaline.
    My brain overpowers my body though and says, “Don’t do it. You don’t need it. You’re fine.” If I take the junk I’ll go home, lay my head on my pillow, and say to myself, “You fucking failed.” You pay the price for taking the junk—physically and mentally. I didn’t take the junk. I didn’t hit it at all this tour.
    These days, towards the end of a tour, it’s not my brain; it’s my body that says no more, you’re shutting down, to hell with your brain. Complete shutdown. We’re gonna restart the computer. Don’t worry right now; we’re just rebooting.

     
The Shoe Inn, Middletown, NJ, December 10, 1999.
Olaf Heine
     

     
Lost Highway tour, signing merchandise backstage pre-show, XCEL Energy Center, St. Paul, MN, March 2008.
Olaf Heine
     

     
Lost Highway tour, signing merchandise backstage pre-show, XCEL Energy Center, St. Paul, MN, March 2008.
Olaf Heine
     

     
Lost Highway tour, signing merchandise backstage pre-show, XCEL Energy Center, St. Paul, MN, March 2008.
Olaf Heine
     
    JON: Before every show, I warm up my vocal chords. But after the show, I cool down. Every night. Twenty years. Simple as that.
    Around 1990, I was having a lot of problems with my voice. Little Steven said, “Katie Agresta.” I called Katie and she asked me if I warmed down, and I said I’d never heard of such a thing. Then she asked me, “If you ran a marathon, would you go right to bed or would you walk it off?” I said, “You have my undivided attention.”
    For years, I’d visit her studio to sing, listen, learn. I’d bring Katie on the road whenever I felt beat up. I’ve relied on a cassette tape of her warm-down exercises from the day I met her. It’s a religion. I take it with me everywhere. Ninety-nine percent of the time I won’t go home from a show without it. U2 came to see us one night and after the show Bono asked, “How the hell do you run around and sing like that for two-and-a-half hours?” I told him what I tell everyone.
    I warm up before the show. I warm down after the show. And I’ve got a chiropractor on the road. It all keeps me in real good shape.

     
Lost Highway tour, mid-concert in quick-change tent, Twickenham Stadium, London, England, June 28, 2008.
Phil Griffin
     

     
Lost Highway tour, mid-concert in quick-change tent, Twickenham Stadium, London, England, June 28, 2008.
Phil Griffin
     
    Your vocal chords are as big as your thumbnail—for real. Those vocal warm-down exercises are a saving grace because if you don’t sing well at night, you feel like a schmuck. Worst case scenario, you have to cancel the show and you don’t want to disappoint fifty thousand people, the band, road crew …
    The Dublin show was one of those days—it happens in those dusty green soccer fields—when my hay fever and allergies kicked in. I was in such pain. My eyes were swelling shut. I was sneezing like crazy. In my quick-change room, I was blowing my nose during every guitar solo. There’s this thing in the back of your mouth, your soft palate. If you press on it with your tongue, fuck!!! You see stars and start sneezing and wheezing. I’m doing that between songs, looking at the boogers in my towel going, “Wow,