Most of the time we drive all day. From Washington to Brooklyn, Boston to Vermont,Myrtle Beach to New Orleans. Every day we drive, every night we play a show.
I’ve been playing in a band for years now, and this is our first major tour. Forty-two shows in six weeks, in 13 states and five provinces. Every night spent in a different motel, sometimes in the back of our van. Eating our two meals a day at gas stations and rest stops.
When you’re in a band, going on tour means that you’ve been able to turn your music into an occupation. That’s been our goal ever since we started playing together. This is what I didn’t graduate this year for. This is the future we’ve always wanted.
I never knew it would be so horrible.
Touring is hopefully the closest I’ll ever come to being in a war. We’ve only been gone two weeks, and already, certain situations have reached a breaking point. For instance, I am out of clean underwear. I have eaten one piece of fruit in 13 days, and the thought of not seeing my girlfriend for another four weeks seems unbearable. The used van we bought the day before we left has a crack in the gas tank, and we’ve been leaking fuel ever since we left. Drop a match behind our van, and you could probably light a trail of fire all the way back to our Etobicoke garage.
We’re hemorrhaging money.
Throughout all this there are the shows, which no matter how tired we are, we have to play well. I once heard a musician describe touring as going up in front of a different crowd every night and lighting yourself on fire for them. That is exactly what it’s like. Every show burns you up completely, and you have to do it all again the next day. We drive further and further south into the States, watching the seasons change in the course of a handful of hours. The snow on the side of the highway disappears, and the forests give way to bayous. “You”s turn into “y’all”s, and by the time we get to Louisiana, it’s almost 30 degrees. As we get closer to Texas, there is a growing feeling that something is happening, that people are moving with us. Fifteen-passenger vans hauling trailers begin to dot the highways. At gas stations in Alabama, dozens of pairs of skinny jeans stand out against the local fashion. There is a migration underway.
Everyone is going to Austin, where each year in March, herds of musicians from all over North America gather for the South By Southwest music festival. There are blocks of nothing but bars, each one with a band booming through the open storefront. Musicians play all day, and by 9 p.m., 6th Street is an absolute cacophony, a raucous blur of ripped jeans, tattoos, and short shorts. The streets are mostly closed off so we hail a pedi-cab. Four of us pile in the back on each others laps and laugh hysterically as our driver, who looks to weigh no more than 120 pounds and has legs like matchsticks, strains to move us through the streets. Through our laughter we urge him forward, but he breaks out laughing himself every minute and stops pedalling, leaving us to drag to a stop in the middle of intersections while car horns honk.
Our own show goes well enough to make us feel good about being here, and we spend the days drinking and the nights going to as many concerts as we can. So many of our favourite bands are here, and we never feel disappointed at the end of the night when we take a cab back to our hotel on the outskirts of the city. We dive into the freezing swimming pool in our underwear, and by noon the next day we’re on a boat drifting down the Colorado River with drinks in our hands.
Austin has been our oasis for the last four days, and this is the first place we’ve been since New York City that I am sad to see go. But in 12 hours we’ll be in the back of our van again, hurtling down the interstate towards another bar and a lonely motel. But we’re resigned. It’s always time to leave.