After all, what would life be like without waking up in the morning and discovering a new routing for The Moody Blues, or perhaps being auto-notified about changes in the schedules for Great White and Bob Dylan? For without the new tours we’d be nothing but bipedal carbon life-forms forced to walk erect through the muck and mire of this third paintball from the sun, oblivious to the ecstasy and bliss brought about when one sees a notation such as Slaves On Dope playing in Ottawa on October 15.

But there was a time when civilization didn’t have tour schedules. A time of strife and despair dating back to that moment in the wondrous garden where the serpent slithered up to Eve and promised her choice seats for Simon & Garfunkel if only she would sink her perfect teeth into the apple. Of course, we know how that turned out. Eve and her mate were forced to leave paradise for a cold, empty world filled with service charges, cancelled dates and parking lots charging $25 a pop.

But there is salvation to be found in the new tours, relief from the confusion and mayhem that surrounds us. The listing for the Eels shatters feelings of despair and anguish. The routings for The Slip and Drive-By Truckers help keep our heads above the murky waters of gloom and torment that threaten to extinguish the inner-light of soulful well-being, just as the new routing for David Bowie helps lessen the sting felt by a perplexed nation left stumbling in clueless dysfunction upon hearing the news about J-Lo and Ben.

Where would we be without the new tours? What would our lives be like without dates for Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey or Drums & Tuba? Imagine a world filled with menace. A world totally devoid of any social order, where debauchery and pandemonium rule the day. A world where anything goes, where up is down, left is right, stop means go and dim is bright. That is a world without tours.

Or a typical day for California’s recall election. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.