You’re not the first to ask that question. People want to know if the individual engagements that make up the schedules for Nikka Costa and Primer 55 are safe for consumption. They want to be assured that looking at the latest routings for Lee Rocker, Judas Priest and The Blockheads won’t lead to respiratory problems, extreme irregularity or that dreaded, deep-seated feeling that one is from Cleveland. They miss the days when Anthrax was just a band and envelopes filled with white powder meant an independent record promoter was in town. They want their lives back.

Of course, this isn’t the first time the American public has been worried about tour schedules for bands like Anathema or Alabama Thunderpussy. Ever since Uptown Sinclair’s novel about clumsy butchers falling in the wiener machines, people have been crying out, “If we can’t trust our meat, how can we trust our tour dates?” Of course, the fact that concert routings, like sausages, should never be observed while being made, was lost on the angry mobs of 1906. They did not understand the difference between tentative and firm and they paid dearly for their ignorance.

But that was yesterday, and today is just one day short of tomorrow. Not only do we wash each schedule for Linda Eder and Kenny Garrett before harvesting, but we also go that extra mile for your safety. We sanitize each date for Today Is The Day, sterilize each venue for Season To Risk and circumcise each and every city for Dave Matthews Band. Our concert routings are 100 percent, grade A, top choice itineraries, hand-picked by Canadian virgins who vouch for their work as if each and every listed event was as sacred as the Stanley Cup and as solid as the late Lorne Greene’s acting career.

But the recent crisis has caused some changes in our method of operation. We’ve had to take a hard look at our practice of providing guided tours through the Pollstar.com processing pits. For while we can stand behind schedules for Branford Marsalis and Iris DeMent, we are hard pressed to make the same guarantees about our employees. Yes, they’re still the toughest, roughest, brightest bunch of tour date researchers ever to graduate from the California penal system, but they’re only human, and embarrassing incidents, like last summer when operator #2198 took a bite out of Sharon Stone’s husband, can hardly be avoided.

Therefore, when it comes to guided tours of the Pollstar.com campus, we must set down some new regulations to protect the safety of our visitors. Take all the concert dates you want, and feel free to snap pictures of our workers processing data for Sting, Neil Sedaka and Lennon. But always remember that Yellowstone rules are now in effect.

Which means that our employees, like our tour schedules for Shelby Lynne and Nickelback, are put here for your enjoyment. Just don’t try feeding them.