Travelogue: Tour

A few days on the road with The Decemberists

Long ago, when Hank - now eighteen - was little, we used to go on tour with The Decemberists a lot. Sometimes we’d join them for a whole tour. Colin and I would live on a bus for a month with our toddler, who slept in a pack ‘n play bolted to the floor in the back lounge.

On the bus in 2008, photos by Nic Close

A tour bus generally has a small room in the back. In the front there are a few benches, a table, and a kitchenette. Between those two spaces is an aisle lined with bunks. Typically everyone sleeps on the bus as it rolls on to the next city, and in the morning you wake up at the venue.

A lot of adult people live together in this cramped mobile apartment. On one leg of the Hazards of Love tour, Hank and I were meant to join for a week or so but ended up staying for the whole month. We lived on that bus with five Decemberists, plus Becky Stark, Shara Nova, and, I imagine, a tour manager. Space is so precious on tour. I’m eternally grateful to those eight people for giving up some of it so my family could be together.

This bus driver’s name was English. He looks grumpy but I remember him being nice.

I mostly love being on tour. I love the shows. I love staying up late drinking beer and talking in the front lounge. I love being gently rocked to sleep in a bunk as the bus glides through the night to the next city. But back then, on those long stretches, I could be exhausted and miserable too. Twice we brought a nanny along, but with space at a premium, there wasn’t really room unless Colin was on a solo tour. I never tried to work on the bus. My only job was to take care of Hank, so in theory we didn’t need a nanny.

But it was hard! It was hard to be a mom without the quiet time alone in my studio that kept me grounded when my kids were little. We weathered some hair-raising tantrums back then, and navigating a new city every day with a toddler took a lot of energy. Also, as co-parents Colin and I generally strive for equality, but that dynamic is impossible to maintain on the road. My job was to take care of Hank, and Colin’s job, along with his daily musical duties, was to stay sane and healthy so he could get up on stage in front of thousands of people every night. If he didn’t, the whole expensive operation and the folks it employed fell apart. This is not to say he didn’t help take care of Hank on the road, but it was primarily my responsibility. I sometimes seethed at the injustice of this, which probably created bad vibes in that cramped mobile apartment, population 10. I’m sorry, Decemberists. If I could go back and do it again there are some things I’d do differently.

This era of touring as a family was relatively short-lived. Hank was the first Decemberists baby, but he was followed quickly by Scout, then Emery, Birch, Milo, and Finn. The band family grew and grew. Hank started school, and it became complicated to leave town for a month. We mostly stopped touring.

These days most of the kids spend a little time on the road. Families take turns, and everyone comes out for a few days. This year Milo flew unaccompanied to Salt Lake City to meet up with the band for a bit. (You can read about it in Colin’s tour diary.) Then, this week, Hank and I took the train up to Seattle to catch up with them for a short stretch.

I had fun. So did Hank, who pines for the tour bus life of his early childhood. He loves to watch the nighttime world go by through the window of the back lounge. This time, on the overnight drive from Bellingham to Portland, he woke in his bunk before dawn and moved to the back to watch the sun rise while we all slept.

Here are a few photos and videos from our short stint on the road. Thanks to Jenny for sleeping on the crew bus so I could have her bunk. Also for giving me two dollars to play dice with. Thanks to the whole band and crew for letting us tag along.

Show #1: the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, where I met this gentleman.

My first stop was the merch table.

ASL boogaloo

Stage tech Bob Beahen got this tattoo at the Revolution Hall show back in June.

A happy kid

Seattle to Bellingham

Soundcheck at the Mount Baker Theatre

An end-of-tour parting gift from the Decemberists to their opener, Ratboys

Nate’s epic dice roll

Lizzy Ellison, James Mercer, John Moen, and Colin rehearse Burial Ground before the hometown show at Edgefield. James is such a sweet guy. I first met him twenty years ago. I was starstruck then, and frankly I still am.

Thanks for giving me your cushy seat, Bob. Thanks for taking my photo in it, Marisa.

It is obviously wild to be married to someone who does this for a living. It is wild to be married to someone capable of doing this.

Milo’s friend Genevieve was at this show. She knows Colin as her friend’s dad and the former dungeon master of their weekly D&D game; the guy who microwaves them popcorn after school and bakes them cookies. I thought about her a few times out there in the audience and wondered what she made of this; if she was surprised by it. I know I am - surprised - still - even after all these years. In some way, I recognize the person on stage as an essential and true form of my husband. But I also see him up there and think, OH MY GOD. WHO IS THAT? WHO IS THAT AMAZING PERSON?

I’m really glad to have spent so much of my adult life in this band’s orbit. Thanks to all you Decemberists fans out there for making it possible. Did you see a show on this tour? Tell me about it. I want to hear.

xo
Carson

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