A Peaceable Tour Diary

Part 4: No days off for you!

Friday, May 10
Washington D.C.

I’ve opted to wait till today to do laundry, pushing the envelope of my bag’s capacity for clean clothes duration. It is critical I do laundry today. And so I try to make it into the venue first to grab one of those coveted washing machines. We’re playing The Anthem in D.C. today, one of the nation’s finest BDRCs, and I figure there’ll be plenty of space for my meager bag of dirty clothes. Alas: Steve, our driver, got to it first. He’s washing bunk linens so it’s not like I can complain. A washer opens up and I nab it, throwing the contents of my bag into the cylinder. But then comes the quandary: I must also wash the clothes I am wearing, but before I can change into my last remaining outfit, I must shower. I choose to leave the washing machine un-run while I quickly shower and rush back to the laundry room to complete the load. In my absence, Nate has thrown his stuff in with mine and started it, however. What are the ethics of this? Was I wrong to reserve the machine while I showered and changed? Was Nate wrong to throw his stuff in with mine and run it without as much as a by-your-leave from me? Sound off in the comments.

The Anthem is a lovely spot to play. It’s a generous space with a big stage and plenty of room to move. There’s a barista set up on the mezzanine, though given Nate’s text alerting the band of this, I for a moment entertain the notion that there’s someone in the venue whipping up lattes whilst navigating an entirely different psychic plane:

I also find it interesting that Nate’s phone has mescaline as a go-to in its spell check function. That may influence your interpretation of the ethical quandary from above. Sound off in the comments.

There are plenty of dressing rooms upstairs and we stretch out and wait. There is no debate, no debate, no debate. It’s raining today so the compulsory walk to the National Mall feels more daunting than usual. I briefly entertain the idea of braving the storm to walk to the National Gallery, but by the time I’m done entertaining, it’s already lunch and time to sign posters. The day vanishes as quickly as it appears. Before you can say “Ayahuasca Cappuccino, please,” it’s sound check time.

Show time rolls around just as quickly. This is one of the venues where our stage design can really shine, all laid out right with the side fills angled back toward the backdrop. We played here before in 2018 and I remember it being a highlight of that particular tour. Tonight is no different. Great crowd, great room. Jordan A. Grobe took some nice shots of the show:

A side note for those who may be wondering: Our walk-on music for this tour is another gem from the Portsmouth Sinphonia — their version of “Morning” from Peer Gynt. If you’re unfamiliar with the Sinphonia, I urge you to read a little about their history and practice. Brian Eno was once a member! We’ve used other pieces by them in the past for our walk on music. Why? It’s a long story:

Back in the early days, we used the Soviet National Anthem as our walk-on music (and when I say walk-on music, I mean that introductory bit of music you hear just before the band takes the stage). I’m not sure why we chose that — I think it was a vestige of my lingering Russophilia. In the days of the early-mid aughts, before we knew the real ugliness of Putin’s mind, it seemed funny and charming. It was super dramatic, it was somewhere well over the top. Then we discovered this YouTube video of an Egyptian band playing the anthem (rather terribly) on an official state visit from the Russian president. After the invasion of Crimea, we decided we didn’t particularly want to appear as if we were some kind of Russian nationalist band, so we ditched the anthem altogether. But the spirit of that Egyptian band’s performance was so charming, so undercut the whole idea of a triumphal show-starting anthem, that I was itching for something like it. Then I discovered the Portsmouth Sinphonia and our troubles were solved. We’ve used their “Also Sprach Zarathustra” (until we discovered that Death Cab For Cutie was using a similar version of the song — great minds think alike) and “In The Hall of the Mountain King.” This time around we’ve opted for more Grieg — the pastoral sweetness of “Morning” befits the stage dressing, I think.

Saturday, May 11
Durham, NC

I’m running a little behind, here, with these entries. One gets carried away, describing the history of one’s walk-on music in detail. I will persevere, however, for the sake of my dear subscribers. O, the sacrifices I make.

Rising from my bunk at 9 am today, I greet the usual early-risers in the front lounge of the bus: Lizzy and Victor. Nate is the earliest of all the risers; he has typically been out for a bike ride and a coffee run before the rest of us have even opened our weary eyes and peered out from the curtains of our bunks. Victor notes that the building next to us looks like a prison; I think it might be a dorm building. It’s actually a prison. We are not playing in a prison today, however. We are playing the Durham Performing Arts Center. It’s a handsome and spacious theater in downtown Durham; we’ve played here once or twice before. I love a good PAC, with its sterile dressing rooms and its walls adorned with murals from all the touring Broadway shows that have played there over the years. It recalls me to my theater nerd days — this could’ve been me, scribbling my name next to the hand-painted logo of Joseph’s Technicolor Dreamcoat.

I shower and dress and walk up the road to the nearest bookstore; I pick up a copy of Chain Gain All Stars. I’m already three-deep in my touring TBR list, but I have that thing where I can’t leave an independent bookstore without buying a book, so the TBR list grows. Then it’s a little farther up the road to get a coffee. This will be the extent of my local adventures today.

The seats are packed to the rafters tonight as we take the stage — always a welcome sight. During “I Was Meant For the Stage,” I take a precarious walk out into the crowd, stepping on the seat arms and using peoples’ shoulders to keep me upright. It is unadvisable, and yet… and yet when the spirit strikes, you have to go with it. For the record, the wooden armrests in the seats at the Durham Performing Arts Center are surprisingly durable and can handle the weight of a slightly heavyset gentleman in his late forties.

Sunday, May 12
Atlanta, GA

It’s Mother’s Day today. It’s Mother’s Day, and we are in Atlanta, Georgia, very far away from the mothers in our lives. I spend the morning in the confines of my bunk, composing a post for Instagram, finding photographs of my wife mothering our children. There are so many to choose from…

We’re playing at a club called The Eastern tonight. We’ve never played here before. It’s strange, in a way, to be in Atlanta and not playing either the Tabernacle or the Cobb Energy Center. Those are the venues I most associate with Atlanta. But The Eastern is a nice newish venue in Cabbagetown, and it’s a hop-skip-jump away from Ria’s Bluebird cafe, a breakfast/brunch spot that has been feeding the Decemberists since 2006 — or at least that was the first time I think I’d ever ventured that far afield for breakfast in Atlanta. Today, though, I am lazy; I eat granola and yogurt on the bus. Getting a table at a brunch restaurant on a Mother’s Day Sunday sounds challenging. Other band members brave it, but not I. Instead, I wander around the neighborhood of the venue. I discover a decent coffee shop; I follow the crowds along a greenway corridor that leads to me to a small farmer’s market. I eat a peach, a real Georgia peach. I then wind my way down to the historic cemetary that’s just across the street from Ria’s. I gravely read the stones. It’s hot and I am not wearing a hat. I can feel the incipient neck-burn coming on. I scooter back to the venue, back to the shade of the backstage.

A note on BDRCs (Big Dumb Rock Clubs): this name is not meant as a pejorative. I owe my living, my very lifeblood, to BDRCs. And BDRCs have changed mightily over the years. Some BDRCs are some of the finest, most well-appointed and comfortable concert venues in the country. I call them BDRCs because so often, despite the venue designer’s best intentions, they can often feel sort of indistinguishable from one another. They are big, black boxes with an open floor of varying dimensions with one or two (sometimes three) balconies stacked on top of it. They are utilitarian structures — they eschew the baroque design of your old seated theaters, the modern sleekness of your Performing Arts Centers. They are meant for rock, and nothing shall distract from that enterprise. The Eastern is a BDRC, and it is a nice place to play.

The setlist tonight is a Mother’s Day special: the songs in the gazebo are “My Mother Was a Chinese Trapeze Artist,” “Leslie Ann Levine, “ and “Shankill Butchers,” a small selection of our songs that feature long-suffering mothers. As always, the Atlanta crowd is lovely one, all smiles and singing. I am predisposed to love an Atlanta crowd — there’s a palpable energy there that, for what ever reason, feel particular to this place, this city. There’s a photographer, Josh Weichman, there to snap pictures. Here are some of the good ‘uns:

At the end of the night, the bus heaves off westward. We are taking big strides across the country now. We are Texas-bound. A day off awaits us tomorrow — our first in seven days. I could not be more ready for it.