saying days off are bullshit is a bit of an understatement. booking tours or shows is a very difficult process, and if you dont know anything about it, you probably shouldnt make comments about the process or the results. especially when you expect things but put in no effort to heed such results.
we essentially booked this midwest tour around the 9/18 chicago, IL show with Cadence and In Arms. we wanted to get a good show with those bands, and while working on the tour, they told us cadence was breaking up and last show was 9/18. so we had to make sure we left late enough to get things booked but early enough to make it to chicago by 9/18.
so we did our best filling the dates. its about a 30 hour drive from tacoma to chicago. break that 7 ways, it should be about 5 hours apart each show. but unfortunately we couldnt lock things up that way. major cities from idaho-minnesota are hard to come by and even harder to book. so we did our best. they werent very well spread out but they were shows, and they should have gotten some kind of money into the gas tank.
so when they get cancelled, its harsh as fuck. all potential money is gone, and that leaves us with $0 in the gas tank. not everyone in the band can afford to put in $ towards gas (which has been a source of animosity between everyone. not the only source, but its one) so the burden falls on those who do have $. but spending personal $ is a big stress for some of us.
would our shows that were dropped have brought in enough $? no. but it would have made dents which would have helped. should we expect having everything "promised" to us and taken care of like some bands? no. not at all. we are in no position to be demanding guarantees of $150 or anything of the sorts. when booking this show, we always asked for gas money. if they couldnt guarantee us $50-75, we told them we would play for donations, because wed do whatever it takes to keep tour going.
it sucks that tour can boil down to money. but we all have lives at home that we are sacrificing from daily to fund this. and it is our choice and our burden to do so. we put this in front of mom/dad/brother/sister. girlfriends and wives. jobs. rent. car payments. insurance. everything. we fuck up our lives for this and it is our burden to bear. but that doesnt change the fact that coming home to nothing is a scary thought. coming home with no where to live sucks. who knows if this van will even last this whole tour? we dont even know if we can make it home.
dark times surround tour, and while most days sunshine breaks through and the best moments and the reasons we go on tour and make this sacrifice happen. days like the show at 4th block. olympia. chicago. hanging out in chi-town with rudy/juan/peter. great mall with the dead end roads kids. but some days, some nights, it gets real fucking dark. tension so thick you need a fucking jackhammer. bickering, bitter words said and even more bitter thoughts left unsaid. people holding their tongues, people letting their words fly at the worst of times.
tour shows the best and worst of all of us, i learned this from both sides of it, going on tour and seeing bands come through in all different kinds of conditions. bands doing well, bands doing terrible. huge bands, small bands. my own band. my friends. this has been one hell of a fucking week, i will say that much. to be honest, we still dont know if the rest of this tour will happen . but we want it to. we want to push on. and we will try. we already had one of my best friends and one of the most essential and important members of open fire bail on us and leave us abandoned this week.
i think we all have a new found appreciation for Modern Life is War on this tour. their words reflect these situations more and more daily. we face uncertainty, but we push ahead. onward and upward.
love,
steve jackson.
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