Waking up after a tour tends to be accompanied by a certain “and it was all a dream…” sensation. There is no hotel check-out time to adhere to, no strict breakfast hours, no soundcheck in some far away town. For the last few weeks our days and nights have been governed by schedules and satnav coordinates. Now we are all, once again, left to our own devices and personal rhythms. The only immediate clue that it all actually happened is the ringing in my ears.
I remember the days leading up to our first tour. I was convinced the band would split up - or at the very least one person would be marooned on some Austrian mountainside. I live alone and have grown accustomed to my own company. Humans are fascinating creatures and I enjoy spending time with them but I always like to know where the nearest escape route is. The idea of being in the company of half a dozen people for weeks on end with no way out fills me with an acute social claustrophobia.
But we’ve done this a lot now, in the UK and overseas. And we’ve never once come to blows. Yes there can be the odd snide comment or bitter retort but for the most part we get on very well. I don’t fully understand it. A day spent in the company of someone else is usually enough to induce at least an eye twitch in me - three days and I’m a tangle of rage.
On tour there is never any solitude. Hours in the van followed by load-in and soundcheck at the venue, followed by a meal together, followed by sitting backstage as the audience files in, followed by an hour and a half on stage, followed by the dressing room post-mortum conversation, followed by hanging around the merch stand, followed by load-out and then back to the hotel room (usually two people to a room). I try to grab half an hour to myself between soundcheck and show, exploring the immediate surroundings, but it’s impossible to ever feel truly ALONE.
I suppose one leaves certain bits of oneself at home. There is no space in our LDV Maxus for egos or fussiness, just as there is no room for comfort. When we are on the road that is all we are. It is a strange bubble in which days of the week are meaningless, where we remain constant whilst the surroundings are ever in flux. The van feels like a tardis, though one that is smaller on the inside than the outside.
And time itself behaves strangely. By gig three I felt like we’d been touring for weeks, that I’d peaked too soon and that the coming shows would be an exercise in gruesome endurance. But by gig nine I felt we’d barely begun, that to continue onwards indefinitely would be the most natural course: a new town, a new crowd, a new language, forever. Nothing has ever felt so obvious, so simple. Why go home when all that awaits you there is what you left behind?
But a day is all it takes for the cares to burrow back into their established furrows. The freedom of keeping one’s own schedule soon becomes the burden of self-motivation.
Only one thing to do now… book the next tour.
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