Working in the entertainment business means that you meet a lot of people from different places.

But there is a hidden danger.

When I am mixing sound for touring acts, I make a special point of being friendly and making them feel comfortable. I make sure they know how to get around town. I have phone numbers of guys who own local music stores in case the band needs something after hours. I have been known to let them do laundry at my house. It’s tough out there and it makes it a lot easier for them to play a good show if I offer some extra hospitality. But I don’t shake hands with them.

When on the road, these bands get exposed to a lot of colds, flu, and assorted viruses. Now, we all are exposed to things like that all the time. And we build up immunities to the things that are circulating locally. If we didn’t, a lot of us would get sick more often. But as they travel, they are exposed to more germs and viruses that they have less immunity to. I can tell you from personal experience that you can pick up something that will knock you for a loop if you don’t get plenty of rest and proper nutrition, which are both hard to do on the road.

When mixing sound recently for a band (who will remain nameless) from out of state, I was careful not to shake hands with them. Fist bumps are safer. After finishing an amazing set, the band came off the stage excited. They were happy with the mix, I was impressed with their talent and one thing led to another. We were all high-fiving and hugging each other, expressing mutual admiration for a great show. I shook hands with the drummer. As he walked away, I noticed that he coughed into that same hand I just shook and grimaced as he rubbed his chest. I didn’t think much of it until less than 24 hours later I had a stuffed up head and a sore throat.  Before another day went by I was bed-ridden.

So remember: don’t shake hands with the touring bands!

“It makes you feel good inside.”

That’s the catch phrase Nashville, Tennessee’s Bonepony uses to describe what they do, and you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who has seen the band that didn’t agree. They’ve been making people feel good inside for years as they criss-cross the nation, stopping in every big city and wide-spot-in-the-road town in America, bringing their unique brand of “Stomp Rock” to their audiences with all the fervor of a traveling tent revival mixed equally with arena-rock spectacle.

“We play our hearts out,” said Bonepony front man and founding member Scott Johnson.

The band: Johnson, Nicolas Nguyen and Kenny Wright, tour year-round and have developed a large and devoted following. Bonepony has toured with acts like Bob Seger, Santana, and ZZ Top, played countless open-air festivals like Farm Aid and the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and rocked every theatre, concert hall, club and roadside honky tonk in the United States and Canada.

Their sixth release, “Feeling It,” hit the No. 1 spot on XM Radio’s X Country chart; no small feat for a band without label funding or radio promotion. The music itself is a melodious hybrid of rock and roll, folk, country, bluegrass and soul, driven home with foot-stomping four-on-the-floor beats crowbarred into four minute musical masterpieces that make it impossible to enjoy while standing still.

 The live show is more of the same, with the band tearing through their unscripted set with unconscious abandon; each band member seemingly playing a different instrument on every song and using every limb available to do so. And you can get a chance to find out for yourself when they do a two night stint,  Friday and Saturday night, Oct. 2-3 at The Windjammer.

For more information, such as show times and ticket price, go to www.the-windjammer.com.

Coming next week: Updates on Roctoberfest. I will be talking to local musicians to get their thoughts about this second year of the festival — that is, if I can remember to not shake hands with the touring bands.

Contact Stu at  allnightjohnson@gmail.com.