Tour Diary

A peek inside the 97’s trek down the Eastern Seaboard

Hello. You’ve reached Time and Temperature.

The Old 97’s are in the third week of a tour that last slightly longer than three weeks—I mean, at moments it’s felt much longer! But there have been moments of absolute transcendence, and sadly it’ll be over any day now. In other words, we are in the homestretch. The good news is that we made it past the flex point that always happens a couple of weeks into a tour where everyone’s nerves get frayed.

These folks showed up in Athens despite the incoming storm

One fun thing is that today is Philip’s birthday. Our intrepid drummer, our secret weapon, my brother of three decades. Ken, Murry and I all wrote stupid crap on a birthday card, and gave him a package of his favorite British chocolate bars. This was a distinct step up from what most band members get during tour birthdays, which is exactly nothing.

The reason for the typical lack of celebration while on tour is that touring sort of takes it out of you, and by “it” I mean everything. When we were young, it was a nonstop party. The ramifications were easily ignored, the hangovers a minor nuisance, and our bodies bounced back from every injury. These days are, well, different. And in most ways so much better. We laugh, and play board games and disc golf. We brag about our kids. It’s so sweet, y’all.

But tour life can be tough on the body. Just sleeping on the bus is enough to throw your back out at our advanced age. And 21 shows in 23 days? Yeesh. But it’s worth it. This is one a dream job, MY dream job actually. The fact that I get to do it for real, and have successfully made a career out of it, astounds me even all these years in.

And now… skip forward to the next day. We are pointing our tour bus directly into the oncoming hurricane.