tour diary: the real tour is the friends we make along the way
11:14 AM. en route to FLORIDA. i know i was sad yesterday - and i was earnestly sobbing in the van listening to queen II and sheer heart attack because how much this industry sucks ass and hurts and sucks the life force from artists but then you know we checked into our hotel in athens georgia and i cracked open my celsius i bought at a gas station on the south carolina/georgia border and claire and i stood in front of the mirror doing our make-up listening to live videos of barbra streisand and patti lupone and as the celsius started to hit me i insisted that we play cynthia erivo’s defying gravity in the car and jonathan was like ‘yeah when she said look to the western sky i started to levitate’ and we get to the venue and it’s a historic place - one where the b-52s and rem played, according to someone in the audience who told us that after - and its packed and rat palace plays a ripping set and basically nancy plays an incredible set and we play genuinely the best set we’ve ever played and suddenly for just that night at least everything is genuinely not just fine, but incredible. a sign from the universe perhaps?
okay i was going to start this newsletter by talking about the beautiful friendships i’ve formed with my fellow musicians these past couple of years and how lucky i feel to have these people in my life. everyone’s talking about the loneliness epidemic and its true: and i feel blessed, so blessed, that as an adult, to have found not just family in my band but community in people that we play with. especially because it is so hard to make music (or create any art really) and it is a thing that is increasingly becoming more and more difficult on the soul. but its the spirit that keeps you driving - its not something you can choose or stop: It is a Calling. for better or for worse.
and i was lucky to be reminded of this multiple times last night. ali (bassist/vocalist of rat palace) and i were reflecting on how a year ago today we bonded and forged our friendship after being mistreated as both women and musicians outside the ‘club’ and also ‘female musicians’ at NYC’s new colossus festival and now we are here, skipping that festival, touring the southeast together. after the show, at the rat palace airbnb during the wee hours of the morning, rohit (guitarist/vocalist of rat palace) and i were discussing the proverbial Calling and how it is the Thing and how it works within the beautiful process of collaboration with people you play with. i watched the drummers jonathan, lyle (rat palace), and shea (basically nancy) laugh together over the floor tom of the kit that kept falling down after the show. these are just the small things but they become the big things and the closeness and the understanding of wanting, needing to create despite it all makes it, not only so much better, but so much more fun.
until next time. xoxo