Release The Lions...

Tour Diary Extract #3 September 12th, 2024

This post is narrated by me on the Substack app, very poorly, using my phone in a tent in Wales, at 5 am, on the longest day of the year. You can hear it if you visit the site, or download the app. Hear all the mistakes, the birds waking up, car alarms, stomach rumbles, and some large insect trying to eat me… also, if you subscribe, you’ll see midweek notes I may post from time to time, so I don’t clog your in-tray with this stuff!

_{(Some Dark Café, realised in miniature by a talented artist I know…)}

Day Two, September 12th, 2024

The idea for this mammoth solo tour came about somewhere after Brexit and during Covid. I had planned a tour for the twentieth anniversary re-release of the debut album, but that went the way of all our plans during that strange time.

In an attempt to do something—anything—of general use during lock-down I live-streamed some shows from my living room. Amie strung some fairy lights above our fireplace and we called this imaginary venue: The Some Dark Café, from the line in the Joni Mitchell song.

I would quote it here but it costs a fortune. The song is called ‘The Last Time I Saw Richard’. Look it up. In this “virtual dark café, for virtually dark times” I played some songs, talked to special guests via video link, and tried to variously make anyone watching laugh and/or cry.

I’d seen other artists do something similar, and I wasn’t quite sure whose need or ego these performances were feeding. But in those days no one knew if live music would ever return, so to do nothing didn’t feel like an option. It wasn’t a time for cynicism. It still isn’t. Amazingly, people tuned in from all over the world to our little café.

What quickly struck me about these shows was the interaction between the audience members, texting and responding to each other on the instagram feed.

If I had worried for a second that it would seem egotistical to perform like this, the fear vanished the moment we went live. I was the one on the screen, but they were the ones turning it into an event. Isolated and quarantined, the simple need for connection was palpable. The shows weren’t about me. Wait. Had my shows ever been about me?

It was an epiphany: I am not the reason, I am just the excuse. I wish I’d known this when I was starting out. So I told myself if we were ever let out again, I’d try to play as many small venues as I could. To go to the towns and venues I could never afford to take a band. To say hello, and for one night only, be the excuse for people to get together.

The aim for this tour was to book fifty shows. A nice round number. Given that the average tour of the UK is now only eleven dates, I thought it would show the world that I am still committed to the cause. That cause being to make me look heroic. And who knows how many of these venues will still be open in a few years time?

Usually my tours—especially of the UK—are limited affairs. Three or maybe four shows in major cities, before popping over to mainland Europe for the same. The idea being that if I play fewer shows, people will travel from the regions. More people on one night in a bigger venue means more money, which means I can afford to have the band—who despite playing with me for over twenty years and calling themselves my friends— still want to be paid. Bastards.

These shows are booked by my agent, and promoted by various companies who pay a deposit and hire fee for the venues. You don’t get the venue you want on the night you want, in the town you prefer, because that night will have been booked out years ago—and I mean years ago—by a company like LiveNation.

Acts then compete with each other for the night they want. I’ve grown used to smiling weakly when people ask “who routes your tours?” They see me careening all over the place as if a blind monkey got drunk on tequila and threw darts at a map. I tell them “a blind monkey got drunk on tequila and threw darts at a map. His name is Steve.” (Author’s note: sorry, Steve. You are amazing, with the patience of one of the less problematic saints.)

So if you’ve ever wondered why the hell I’m always playing a Monday night in Paris it’s because that’s what I can get, and that’s what’s cheaper. Venues cost less to hire on weekdays, more on weekends. If you think the music business is like any other business, you’re wrong. But in its upper echelons, it is exactly like any other business, in that it is venal, strips costs to the bone, and considers the human work force expensive and ultimately expendable. Its sole purpose is to make a profit for shareholders.

And I have loved every moment.

These are perhaps details no one wants to know. Me included. But every day there is some article or other in a national paper talking about the billion dollar success story of live music. An industry revived by Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, and Coldplay. Or how Adele has boosted the economy of a city—and indeed country—by setting up shop in Munich and inviting the world to come to her. What began in Vegas is spreading to other cities. The residency is setting a new trend. (Author’s note: Harry Styles is now doing the same thing.)

The era of huge acts touring the world may also be drawing to a close. Imagine the savings to the artist of not having to move a show every day. Imagine the sudden influx of fans. The hotel, restaurant, and taxi receipts. It’s not a huge leap to go from there, to artists asking the city to foot some of the bill, like European cities paying Ryan Air to fly there.

The world of touring is going to look very different soon. U2 are in the Vegas Sphere, Abba in their Abbatoir (or whatever their pop-up venue is called) and an Elvis show is on the way. The trend for tribute acts is on the rise again. It’s hard enough booking venues as it is, without having to compete with the retired or long dead. Not that I’m far off either.

The Music Venues Trust, a UK-based charity, has been campaigning to get a pound from all stadium tickets to go towards keeping grass roots venues open. Several acts have already voluntarily offered to do this, and it’s possible that Parliament can yet be persuaded to get the idea on the statute books.

But I have my own fears that this will not be enough to secure the first rung of the rickety tour ladder. The same first rung I’m stepping gingerly onto for this tour. (Author’s note: and will be again in October/November 2026)

Even mid-tier venues are in trouble, and while streaming continues to take money out of the touring ecosystem and put it in the hands of Spotify and label executives—even if venues can be saved—who are we saving them for? Acts who can’t afford to play them? Punters who are apportioning their entire budget for live music to Glastonbury tickets? Or the late teens and early twenties of Generation Covid, for whom the idea of paying to visit a mouldy, sticky-floored venue to see a little-known band, doesn’t feel quite as attractive to them now as it once did to their parents.

These days aspiring musicians go from TikTok to arenas in months. Paying one’s dues, learning the craft—toiling on the toilet circuit—is becoming a thing of the past. So I want to take a look around, gaze into the murky crystal ball and see if there’s a future for this world of touring. And see if there’s a future for me.

_{(Always interesting to see how many covers bands there are these days)}

SHOW 2, THE PHOENIX EXETER, SEPT 12^th

It stops raining just as I arrive at the venue, but the sky is low and dark. The clouds are biding their time, waiting for me to start loading in. Exeter has a beautiful cathedral and picturesque surrounding green. A city with all the energy and potential of every university town. It would be nice to look around, but as usual there’s no time.

Once again the load-in to the venue is down a narrow, pedestrianised cobbled road. In these instances of wanting to explain to every enraged or startled walker precisely why I’m driving illegally down this road, I channel my inner Frenchman and just gesticulate and sigh.

There are several little theatres, usually community or arts-council-funded that somehow still survive in this country. The Phoenix benefits from being a performance arts hub in a big university town, and there’s always a lot going on. They have to raise a lot of money each year to make up the shortfall from government, but however hard it is, each time I’ve played here, it’s been buzzing. It boasts a gallery, workshops, studios, a cinema, a cafe and a bar. It’s a beautiful little space, very well run, lovely staff and people who know their job.

But Jesus Christ it’s tough to play.

There is no stage, the act performs on the floor but the audience seats are raked up sharply, and when you first walk on it feels as if someone is about to release the lions.

Trust me, a stage really fucking helps the average musician. And I’m a very average musician. A stage is part of the expectation. It’s the work that is done for you by the design of the building, to put the audience into that mental space to be ready for live performance, and to literally elevate the performer to the status of ‘artist’.

Without a stage, the gig—like the seating—feels all uphill. I’m not saying I want to be put on a pedestal, but I’d like to enjoy the feeling of a handful of people looking up to me—at least once in a while.

Over the years I’ve learned how to play these rooms. And if not perfectly, then at least I know how to counter and control the terror they can inspire. Rooms like this require a confidence trick. As does the daily soundcheck.

Be kind, be patient, be professional. Be kind, be patient, be professional.

Despite a last-minute decision to wear different shoes, the show goes well. It takes work, but less work than I thought it would. Being solo helps with the spontaneity, which is what this size of audience demands. I spend weeks preparing to be spontaneous.

I always wear the same thing on stage, simply because it’s one less thing to worry about, and I know the possible dangers of what I’m wearing. Strings catching on shirt buttons, the guitar banging on a belt buckle. Those tiny moments of frustration and disappointment I’m always trying to avoid. Like the lady at breakfast yesterday, to the casual observer it looks like control freakery, but I just want to enjoy playing without distractions. At least ones I can control. Not, for instance, the barman in a certain Manchester venue, who waits for the quietest number to recycle the glass bottles.

I’m still not sure I’ve got the set right, and it doesn’t feel I got long enough to really give them their money’s worth—but venues have their own rules which must be obeyed. I did take a few risks, some things worked, some didn’t. When I say didn’t work, I mean didn’t quite continue the thread from one song to the next, or maybe I chickened out and let the crowd off the hook too many times. Let them exhale too soon. Maybe a gig is like sex, sometimes delayed gratification is better. Or maybe the way I’m describing it now is like solo sex. And there’s a name for that.

Maybe a gig is like sex, sometimes delayed gratification is better. Or maybe the way I’m describing it now is like solo sex. And there’s a name for that.

On my walk back to the hotel I pass another entertainment space, not a venue this time, but yet another Escape Room Experience. I should put that on my posters.

In my pocket I find the drinks tickets from last night, in Falmouth. What if all small venues had the same drink vouchers? I could use them at a convenient time. Or throw an end of tour party. Maybe in Manchester. With that fucking barman.

I try to get some sleep, but these hotel walls are cheap, and my neighbour’s snoring keeps me awake for most of the night. I think about putting it in a song, but— as with all songs— Paul Simon got there first, and better.

No more talk of hotels. Promise.

_{(me seeing if I can remember how to play Duncan, by Paul Simon)}

www.tommcrae.com