One of the only actual experiences I’ve had during this year of couch lock was when I got to do a small run of shows tour managing for The Underground Thieves in the middle of summer. I’ve written about it elsewhere in a piece that was about what it felt like to conduct the business of live music in the age of coronavirus. However, what I left out of that piece was the story of the end of that night, when I found myself standing alone on the planet staring at the lights of Philadelphia.
The gig was our introduction to the drive-in show format. It was also Live Nation’s first concert, which meant that we would be the first band to ever play this nail-biting experiment conducted by the world’s largest - operator of live events and venues in the sixth biggest market in the country. There were tons of precautions in place. As far as I witnessed, not a single incident backstage where anyone broke protocol. The audiences were champing at the bit, and you couldn’t ask for a band more excited to take that stage. The night was strange, beautiful, and it was different in a way that allowed me to take stock of how lucky I’ve been to tour manage shows under insane circumstances in the past.
Scheduling issues meant that the band and crew were already setting up and getting ready to soundcheck by the time I could get there. To accommodate the traffic and space for all of those vehicles, Live Nation erected their stage amidst the shadowy colosseums where in any normal year, the Phillies, Eagles, Flyers, and Sixers command annual vehement adoration. In what would later be a sea of cars, mine was parked so far in the back that it was a speck from the stage. It was so far away that by the time I got to it, everyone - including the global headliner with the tractor-trailers and the tour bus, including our band and crew, including all of the Live Nation executives who’d been nervously swigging beers all night, and the entire stage and rigging crew operating the venue - everyone was gone.
I was alone. On the ground that’s been home to every major win and loss Philly has ever had. On the ground that’s played host to the best and biggest musical acts in history. On the ground where I’ve seen Radiohead and Billy Joel and U2 and Elton John and Phil Collins and and and and. On the ground where I worked in the room during the Democratic National Convention in 2016. On the ground where we just christened the first drive-in show in the era of social distancing. To my right was the baseball stadium, to my left, that crazy stage, and in front of me, the city of Philadelphia - where I’ve lived and worked nearly all of my life, yet a place I’d not visited in months during the pandemic. In the late-night hour and darkness of the parking lot, alone, staring at a somehow foreign place, I may as well have been standing on a different planet.
This story has come to mind quite often over the past few weeks as I’ve devoured and then gorged myself on the latest release from The War on Drugs, another Philly rock band. It’s their first live recording, appropriately named LIVE DRUGS, and like their previous two releases, it’s been an unexpected religious experience.
The quality of the recording is so crisp and clean yet always clearly live. (1) As a music fan, I appreciate that it is a live recording of quality and polish. (2) As a tour manager, I appreciate (so very much, after this dearth of a live music year) that it evokes countless memories of how exciting it is to look out from a stage and watch strangers fall in love with your friends when everything goes this good. (3) As a devotee of that band, I appreciate how it manages to elevate above the studio recordings, which is a nearly impossible trick when it comes to live records. Having absorbed Lost In The Dream and A Deeper Understanding into my DNA, I genuinely never expected that those songs could get better.
But most of all, I’m in love with the band’s closer, Eyes to the Wind, when keyboardist and guitar player, Robbie Bennett, plays this truly beautiful piano composition. It delicately holds the listener and then layers in all of the other instruments until it ends with a cacophonous saxophone. I’m not selling it well. You should really listen to it.
Every time I hear Robbie’s performance, I am struck by how amazing it must feel to have an entire stadium hold its focus on you as you lay the groundwork for this tremendous closing song. I can picture the spotlights. The purple wash from above, slashing across his hands. The fog from the upstage hazer being whipped around by the night wind. To captivate in such a moment, alone. You’ve gotta just be on a different planet.
I’m so affected by Robbie’s solo because there was a time, many years ago, when he and I shared a bunk in the Automatic Fire band van as we toured the Southeast. So it’s exhilarating to know it’s all happening to someone I really admire. Robbie and I were never close, except in proximity. Still, I’ve been awed by his mind, wit, and talent since before I even knew him personally.
Touring with live music is an experience that I can’t really describe. One friend calls it the circus. Another calls it the Black Hole. Hunter Thompson called it a long, plastic hallway. 2020 made it more of a mission and less of a joyride, but some missions can still be a ton of fun.
It’s also a family, functional and dysfunctional as any other. You’ll have brothers and sisters and even an inner circle of familiar loved ones. There will be the cousins you see every few years. The uncles and aunts that you love dearly, but from a distance. You have the friends of the family that you’ll get to know. If you’re lucky, you befriend the partners and get adopted by the in-laws. If you tour-manage, you’re basically band mom or dad. You have your favorite places you get to visit. You get on each other’s nerves. And everyone gets together and shares their fondest memories when a beloved elder finally passes, or a sibling dies too young.
It’s an astounding source of gratitude for me that I’ve had these experiences. They’ve grown and evolved so much since I first figured out how to get on the other side of the barricade and tumbled into a music life almost 20 years ago. So have I.
It’s been difficult watching helplessly as my friends have endured this challenging year. It’s also been so inspiring to see them go back to their drawing boards and reiterate with new ideas and different hustle. I’ve watched in horror as venues have closed and tours have been postponed indefinitely, and I’ve shouted in glee as they’ve used this downtime to master their craft. Helping to promote their work feels like the least I’ve been able to do.
I’ve had an opportunity to see what one future version of live music looks like, and ya know, sure, it may work. It was a fun night, even as it was weird to look out on an audience and hear mostly honking in response. But we need to take the steps we can to get people safely back together in the business of live music as a shared experience. It’s good for the body and soul. It’s good for you and me. And it’s good for the musical family that lets me play “band dad” and are cosmically always with me, even when I’m huddled under the overhang of Citizens Bank Park, staring out at Philadelphia, practically standing on a different planet, all alone.