Tour Diary #3

Hello friends. I meant to hit send on this yesterday when I got to the venue, but then our back window imploded on the drive into Dallas and I spent time getting that fixed. I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday weekend as best they can.

We have entered a sort of warped speed part of tour. This happens any time you have to head west and then turn right back around. The time zone changes and the exceptionally long drives blur everything into simply being “on tour”.

I have some highlights, but we also have some bookkeeping to attend to.

Our 2nd official book club chat for Wolf In White Van was either supposed to be yesterday, or July 9. I’m looking at my calendar now, and it’s just not going to happen. We’re learning the perils of trying to schedule live chats while also on tour.

I’ve talked to Pete about it, and we’ll double up the chat at the top of August, combining the talks for books 2 & 3. I think this will work wonderfully given how stylistically different the books are, and the fact that Wolf was so divisive from the people I’ve talked to.

And what is book 3? Since I’m on the road, I needed to pull from a stack of books I brought with me, and settled on a book I truly bought based on title and back synopsis a few months back - The Postmortal by Drew Magary.

It’s a nice piece of speculative fiction that has a nice, sticky premise — what would happen in the world if we “cured” aging?

I know very little about Drew. I imagine I’ve read some of his sports work in the past. I didn’t even realize this book is 15 years old. It seems like something 23 year old me would’ve latched onto immediately.

I guess we’ll find out.

So get started on this book as well. I’ll be in Philly at the top of August so we’ll do this Book Club chat with Pete and I in the same spot (maybe we’ll bring on a Wolf defender & hater for a debate). And then I’m sure we’ll have a totally non-depressing talk about the state of the world after reading The Postmortal.

And I promise we’ll do a subscriber recommended book next month, and then Pete and I want to do the new Emily St. John Mandel book when it releases in September.

This is going to be a bit more rapid fire than previous entries. At this point my day essentially is:

• Get up too early and eat a hotel breakfast

• Drive anywhere from 4-6 hours hoping the van stays in one piece.

• Load-in & soundcheck

• Rush to find a dinner that won’t make me burp on stage.

• Play the set.

• Pack up and load out.

• Catch Armor’s last 2 songs.

• Wait for the merch count out and settle the show. Try to talk to attendees near merch if space allows.

• Drive 30 mins to 2 hours.

• Set AC in range of 67-69 degrees depending on room.

• Shower. Sleep. Repeat.

Weird show, probably from not being able to make noise until 5p. Our green room was next door to a lawyers office. Someone walked out when I gave a very soft speech about standing up to fascism.

First time in this part of MO. Beautiful theater. Crowd was incredible for a Monday show. My parents came to the show. Met quite a few people who traveled some distance to see the show. I always appreciate that as someone who grew up having to drive an hour and a half minimum to see something good.

An off day that doesn’t feel like an off day. When not playing any Kansas shows, it can easily sub in for Nebraska in Clean-Up Crew. Sorry Kansas. Did snag a decent meal at a cantina.

First time here, and they welcomed us with killer energy. Tough to do both this and Denver on a tour, but we’ll make a point to come back eventually.

Long drive off day to stay in the middle of Utah. Went to a restaurant called Wingerz to watch the USA match. Heard the manager get in a verbal shouting match with a cook who refused to put gloves on. Ate my salad filled with anxiety.

Utah was on fire on the drive down. We played at a casino off the strip. Our green room was not connected to the venue, so it felt like I was at a business convention all day and then just ambled into a dark room to play. The venue doors kept opening while we were on stage and I could see the bright casino beyond. Killer show.

Home shows are always chaotic. I pretty much just remember chatting with friends and eating meals. One of our best SD shows to date.

Get to hang out with close friends in Phoenix and Austin. Everything is melting. We have to continually reapply gaff tape to our weather stripping where the glue has melted off (and the tape glue melts as well).

Watched most of the USA match on my laptop, yelling at it when it disconnected from my phone’s hot spot every 5 mins.

Got a flat tire 40 mins outside Austin. Waited 2 hours for uHaul again.

Texas is odd for us as a band. We have some undeniable die-hard fans here who will travel hours to see us and absolutely go off during the shows. I try to focus solely on them. But we’ve largely never done super well with general audiences here. We’ll keep trying to crack it.

I typed the above sentence and left for Dallas. Our window blew out. It was hot. Everyone was on the absolute edge. And then we had probably the best show we’ve ever had in Texas. Even found some vegan ice cream after the show (with a parlorista who knew how to properly stuff a sugar cone before stacking the scoops). Crazy how that works out.

-D

Watching:
Mostly just the World Cup at this point.

Reading:
The Postmortal

Listening:
The Killers - Imploding the Mirage
Meat Loaf - Bat Out of Hell
In The Dark podcast, because I’m ten years late to a lot of podcasts.