A Peacable Tour Diary

Part 8: Begin the begin (again)

Band in Bend (photo: Eric Mayers)

Friday, July 12
Bend, Oregon

So begins the second leg of the Peaceable Kingdom Tour 2024 — a leg that follows a comfortable loop around the western parts of the United States (with a brief dip into Canada). It’s a rare treat — a tour in which there will be no flying whatsoever. The bus will be picking us up from home and the bus will be dropping us back off at home. The only shuttle travel I have to do this morning is take a car to the PDX airport Sheridan where the bus is waiting.

It’s a different bus with a different driver, though you probably couldn’t tell from looking at it. It’s painted black. It’s long. Inside, it’s mostly the same, too, except for a slight change in the layout of benches. The band is all here when I arrive; I have my son Milo in tow and we scuttle to the back of the bus where there is some room. As soon as the bus starts rolling, Milo locates my bunk and curtains himself in for some comic book reading time. I nap in the back lounge, my head resting against a bag of extra bedding. Oh, the glamor.

It is 96 degrees when we arrive at our destination, the Hayden Homes Amphitheater, formerly known as the Les Schwab Amphitheater, probably soon to to be known as the Colgate Whitening Strips Amphitheater, and then, someday, the Collapsible Wildfire Safety Shelter Amphitheater. You know how these things go. But it’s the same old Amphitheater as it ever was — only a slightly refreshed backstage and a few more pavilions on the edge of the raked lawn. We, memorably, played here the first time in 2004 supporting The Pixies with our friends Death Cab For Cutie. It’s always nice to return.

We have lunch; Milo induces me to play at least fifteen games of ladder golf. We soundcheck in the heat of the afternoon — despite the fact that I’ve just recovered from a voice-destroying chest cold, things feel pretty stable. By showtime, that is not the case.

I don’t know what it is, whether it’s the inclement chest cold hanging on for its dear life or the dry air up here in the high desert, but my voice starts frogging out by the end of the first song and I am reduced to coughing fits on stage in front of 5,000 people. I don’t recommend it. I spend the rest of the show trying to get my legs under me, my voice-legs, that is. As soon as I think I’ve mastered it, it abandons me again. The show holds together, though, for the most part. I imagine I am my own worst critic in these situations — I laser focus on only the mistakes, on the flaws. I have a distinct feeling the show was not a bust altogether and genuinely had some nice moments. But I do walk off stage wanting to throw myself in front of moving train. Show business, folks.

A night of sleep will do me some good; I hide away from the after show guests and disappear into the bus after saying goodbye to Milo — he’s off for a week of camp. I can do this. I know I can do this.

Time for a candid moment (photo by Steph Port)

Saturday, July 13
Oakland, CA

Ok, I’m just now looking at my last entry and admittedly it looks a little grim. Here’s the thing: I’m not entirely sure how to best capture the experience — or at least my experience — of being on the road in a touring band. How much honestly do you want? How much is appropriate to share? I think my intuition is to gloss over the darker, more unseemly sides of the touring life. I’ve never been one to trot out every aspect of myself openly online; I’ve presented a pretty curated version of my life. I suppose most people do that. But I can’t pretend that touring is something I’ve ever been really happy doing. Kind of the opposite, actually. It makes me pretty miserable a lot of the time, in fact.

The shows are a different thing entirely — the shows are the balm that make everything worth doing. And it’s not just the roar of the crowd etc etc that keeps me going — though that certainly is a perk — but the anticipation of the person I can become on stage, the magic that live music is able to conjure, the way it lives inside and outside of time, that seven people onstage can find a way to create something together, spontaneously, in a moment in time — it’s the sort of stuff that inspires the creation of religions, I think.

But all the other stuff, the moving from place to place, the being away from home, the bad sleep and the aching bodies — that’s, like, 80% of the whole deal. And I don’t love it. I’ve never loved it, really.

And yet I cannot express how grateful I am to be in this position, to play music for you, to make music that moves people, that changes them. That I can do this thing that I wanted to do since I was a kid, and I can do it for a living. It’s remarkable; it’s miraculous. But that does tend to make me feel worse about myself when I feel unhappy on the road. Like: how can you dare be unhappy? Look how lucky you are!

This is an ongoing struggle, and one that I am certainly mulling as I wake up in my bunk after the overnight ride from Bend.¹ Our bus is parked in a lot behind the Fox Theater in Oakland, CA and I have, against all odds, slept pretty well. I rouse myself eventually to move into the venue, one that we’ve played many times in the past. The backstage is always well-decked with little goblets of mints and dental floss — I sometimes wonder if the Fox Theater is not sponsored by some dental organization. There is a bottle of Scope in every bathroom. I take a shower. I will rate it as follows:

General Layout/Ambiance: ★★★★☆
Water Pressure: ★★☆☆☆
Temperature: ★★★★☆
User Interface: ★★☆☆☆

Later in the day I track down a pour-over coffee joint and shuffle through the mostly-empty streets of Oakland to find it. There are murals everywhere, on most of the buildings-sides and I am reminded of my friend Spencer who made a documentary about one such mural in Oakland. You can learn about it here.

Soundcheck arrives in due time and I step to the microphone wondering if the troubles of the night before will continue to haunt me. I am pleasantly surprised to see things are working okay. The Shebangers² are escorted into the house and we play a couple songs for them — “July July” and “Grace Cathedral Hill.” The Bay Area crowd goes in for the old ones.

Photo: Steph Port

Dinner is a sea bass on a bed of spinach; I then hide away in my cone of silence till showtime stalks around. Still so much anxiety about the health of my voice — admittedly, it probably goes beyond reason. Here’s the thing — when the one two-hour moment, the one blissful moment in the midst of all the rigmarole of tour, when that moment is spoiled because of a faulty instrument it really can sink the whole enterprise. In any case, things are feeling okay once I hit the stage. A little strained in the high notes, sure, but that’s to be expected at the top of a tour. My larynx is still intact once we exit the stage. Onward to Los Angeles!

One can always count on a Rush fan to keep you upright (photo: Steph Port)

Sunday, Jul 14
Los Angeles, CA

The sun is beating against the bus windows as I get up; it’s hot outside. We have clearly left the wintery climes of San Francisco. Outside, I can see a concrete bunker of some sort painted a utilitarian slate gray. This can’t be the venue, can it? It is. Welcome to the Bellwether in sunny Los Angeles. I grab my stuff and head inside.

The interior has been described to us by our tour manager as “looking like Dita Von Teese vomited everywhere” and she’s not off the mark. I’ve never set foot inside a bordello, myself, but the person who redecorated the backstage dressing rooms of this venue have either frequented many themselves or just has an overwhelming obsession with clashing wallpaper colors and velvet “sexy” furniture.

The stage is the size of a postage stamp. We will not be hanging our backdrop today; Jenny will not be on a stage riser. We will be headstock to headstock at the show tonight and that’s just the way it’s going to be. It was someone else’s choice to do two nights in a smaller venue rather than one night in a big one. I am told that our fans will like the change. I am unconvinced. I am also very grumpy (see previous tour diary entry).

I soldier on nonetheless. How’s my voice feeling? Do you really want to know? I worry that these diary entries are becoming a banal litany on the ebbs and flows of my voice health. I’ll stop talking about it. At soundcheck, I can sing, and I do sing two songs (“June Hymn” and “Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect”) for the gathered Shebangers. I skulk offstage to a Taiwanese dinner waiting for me in a cardboard container backstage. I read my book, which is M: Son of the Century by Antonio Scurati. I figure if my country is speeding headlong into fascism, I might as well bone up on the subject.

At showtime, I am inspired to put on a “no-nonsense” performance. This is because I am grumpy and my voice hurts. I will just play the songs and sing the songs, but I will not jump around or be “silly.” However, in my attempt at doing a “no-nonsense” performance, I find I’m actually singing and playing the songs much better than I would if I was feeling less grumpy, if I was jumping around and being silly. It’s a revelation! As a consequence, I feel less grumpy and the songs start to fall apart. By the end, I’m sitting on the floor singing “I Was Meant For the Stage” in a decidedly ungrumpy fashion.

The Uber driver who takes me and Manager Jason back to our hotel after the show sees the club marquee as we’re leaving and says, “Whoa, the Decemberists! I didn’t even know they still toured!” I humbly pray that the fabric of this Honda Civic backseat will consume and smother me. Good night, LA. See you tomorrow.

1. fucking *ace* segue there

2. This what we call the folks who have opted to add the “Whole Shebang Action Concert Package” or some such nonsense to their admission ticket. They get some extra swag, early access to the venue, and a couple songs followed by a Q&A during our soundcheck. I’ve just looked now at our website and it turns out we don’t even call it the “Whole Shebang Action Concert Package” anymore. What gives?