A Peaceable Tour Diary

Part 3: So much Pennsylvania

Tuesday, May 7
Pittsburgh, PA

The windows of the bus this morning are freckled with raindrops. This causes some consternation among the cyclists in the group. We are in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and we were promised sunny weather.

Looking out the rain-wet window, I see that we are parked next to a building with the American Eagle Outfitters logo hung on it. Just by the layout of the parking lot and the building, I reckon for a moment that we are in Columbus, Ohio, at the Lifestyles Pavilion — or whatever it is that it’s being called these days. That’s because — and I remember this, because we played this place back in 2017 — Stage AE, where we are playing tonight, is actually *modeled* after the Lifestyles Pavilion. If it weren’t for the more spacious stage and the omnipresent American Eagles branding, you might mistake the one for the other.

We’ve run out of good coffee on the bus and Victor has volunteered to seek out a bag of decent beans. We bid him good fortune on his voyage. Here, on the North Shore of the Ohio River, one does not get the impression that one is in “fancy coffee” land. We are abutted to the east and west by an NFL football stadium and a MLB baseball park. I don’t want to be a snob, but that doesn’t exactly scream hole-in-the-wall hipster coffee roaster.

The very first drops of the Ohio river

Despite the overabundance of franchise branding everywhere you look, the North Shore of Pittsburgh is quite beautiful. There’s a lovely river walk down there on the banks of the Ohio and you can see across the water to the south side bluffs and the funicular that runs up the slope. I’ve said it before: Pittsburgh is actually a very lovely city. It is also, apparently, one of the cheaper metropolitan areas in the country to buy a house, and that has some of our gang flicking through their Zillow apps, looking at these big five-room houses for sale at a fraction of the price of their Portland equivalents. Lizzy begins a transnational move in her mind. Could she live in Pittsburgh? Does she want to live in Pittsburgh?

We sign some posters in one of the backstage rooms. There are windows in the room, which can be a rarity in backstage dressing rooms. The afternoon passes; the sun arrives and the outside air is hot and muggy. In a moment of self-determination, I shave my mustache. Is this a rebirth or a Bob-Geldof-in-a-hotel-room moment? Too soon to tell.

Post-mustache.

Showtime rolls around eventually and we all wind our way through the backstage labyrinth to the stage. It’s a healthy crowd out there — another BDRC — but they seem placid enough for the acoustic gazebo set. This is maybe the third or fourth night we’ve played the same setlist and I can already start to feel the itching for a change. The upside of playing a set over and over, however, is the familiarity. These songs are wired into us now and it allows room for play. Throwing new songs into the set can sometimes do a number on the nerves. It’s the balance we need to strike.

We end with a “Joan in the Garden” that threatens to leave the tracks on several junctures before stumbling offstage into the awaiting arms of our bus bunks. There is a strange needlepoint portrait awaiting me in my bunk. I’m not sure what to make of the visitor. I will call him Steve.

Well hello, Steve.

Wednesday, May 8
Philadelphia, PA

As soon as I leave my bunk and head to the front lounge of the bus, there’s already rumblings of a proper snooty coffee shop just the street from the venue. A couple of our crew had returned, bearing news of a decent pour-over. I messed up my morning brew, so I get into my street clothes and head out. The cafe fits the description: it is barely the size of a closet and is sparsely outfitted with strange, wooden furniture. The walls are bare white. The baristas have funny haircuts. I’ve come to the right place. A regular comes in and I eavesdrop on a very inside-baseball discussion about — I’m guessing — Warhammer 40K between him and the baristas. The coffee I’m given is even more third wave than I’m accustomed to — have I entered the fourth wave? I make it back to the venue unscathed.

We’re playing the Fillmore, here in Philadelphia. Trumpetist Victor, bless his heart, wonders if this is where that Allman Brothers album was recorded. Sadly no. The Fillmore is a franchise now, a national chain, run by our benevolent overseers Live Nation. Gone are the Fillmores of old. I don’t think a single original one remains. We played here in 2017; there are Star Wars sculptures hanging from the backstage ceiling. Hard to forget that.

The day vanishes in a blink of an eye. Before I know it, we’re on stage for soundcheck. We run a few of the songs we want to add to the setlist and usher in the Whole Shebangers, our VIPs. We play “Hazards 4” and… and what? The song eludes me. There is a woman there wearing a dress made out of Illimat boards. I wonder if the SoL would approve of that sort of desecration till I learn she’d been given the okay by Keith Baker himself. It’ll fly.

The show, when it comes around, feels lively. The added songs are a nice change of pace. We’ve rechristened our horn section as Confluence — an ode to the mighty Allegheny and Monongahela rivers we have just left behind in Pittsburgh. We suspect with a name like that they will be snapped up by Windham Hill Records in a heartbeat, just in time to record their semi-improvisational holiday record, Breath of Winter Winds. “Sporting Life” is given some extra (sporting) life. “Joan,” as ever, is the closer. If that song doesn’t pop a larynx, I don’t know what will. It’ll be given a break tomorrow as we play a radio conference near the university. Thank the gods.

After the show, the bus shuttles us back to the hotel, there to have a blessed evening in a real bed. Good night, Philadelphia, you haughty minx.

Thursday, May 9
Philadelphia, PA

I wake up in my hotel bed. I am still in Pennsylvania. Will I be in Pennsylvania forever? It’s too soon to say. I have overpriced steel cut oats in my hotel bed and watch the last two episode of “Baby Reindeer.” I then pass another half hour just Googling all things “Baby Reindeer.” I finally climb from my bed around 12:30 to walk the streets of Philadelphia, as they say. The bus picks up the band at 4:45 to shuttle us to the venue. It’s been a day of a whole lot of nothing.

We’re playing a radio convention today, on what would otherwise have been a day off. We tend to skip these sorts of things while on tour, always concerned about keeping up my vocal health. We’ve opted to say yes a few times this go around, so here we are.

The convention is in the WXPN building; we’re playing on a very small stage, sandwiched on the set between two bands — Brigitte Calls Me Baby and The Fontaines DC — and the stage is impossibly cramped. We manage to wring out a quick soundcheck and then squirrel ourselves away back on the bus till showtime.

I pop in to watch a couple songs by the first band, Brigitte Calls Me Baby. It’s very Mozzy, very Mozzy indeed. It’s so Mozzy, in fact, that I find it pretty charming. They’re a good band; they’ve got a good singer. We squeeze onto the stage shortly after they leave and play a rousing thirty minute set in front of a bunch of non-commercial radio programmers, DJs, and their gold-level donors. These are our people. We are nothing if not a band made for the non-comm stations of the world. Call us the Sultans of Non-Comm.

Then it’s back on to the bus for a half a bagel and bed. I drink a glass of wine in the back lounge and text with Carson for a moment. I’m in my bunk when the bus starts moving. It appears we are leaving Pennsylvania after all.