We played in Toronto last night. It was our first Canadian gig and it went well. The club wasn’t much to speak of, but that’s to be expected from our first time in a new market. The promoter was pleased with the turnout, though earlier in the day there was a bit of handwringing over the lack of presold tickets. According to him people don’t want to pay the TicketMaster surcharge, which adds up to well over half the base ticket price. This is from the mouth of the Live Nation promoter - “people don’t want to pay the ridiculous TicketMaster surcharge”. I thought that dovetailed nicely with yesterday’s post.
Anyway, I should do more writing on music, I think. That’s obviously where I have a great deal more experience and relative expertise than software but it’s just so old hat for me. I’ve turned to the software business as a mental escape from sitting in the van/bus and thinking about the music business. I’m tired of the music business. I’ve learned pretty much everything I care to know about the music business. So why keep doing it?
I was in a pretty lame mood yesterday. Toronto is very cool - at least the hood we were in - but I get burnt out on the traveling and the being gone from Michelle and Noah approximately two hours after I walk out the door. We’ve been in a tour bus for the last year, and the memory of being in the van is still fresh in my mind. The opening act last night was grilling me after the show about what it’s like to ride in a bus. “It’s fine, don’t get me wrong, but you can get real tired of traveling around no matter what the vehicle.” I’ll elaborate on professional bus travel in another post.
We played a great show last night, though.
After the show I remember thinking (because I wrote it down) “as tired as I am of traveling, that’s as good as we’re playing”. Meaning - all the glamour, the novelty, and the fun of traveling America has completely and utterly worn off by this point. The only thing that keeps me going is the music, and the music has been better than ever lately. Two nights ago at Niagara Falls I played better than I ever have before, without effort, and this has been happening a lot lately. I’ve been more often reaching a deeply meditative state while we play, I call it the Coltrane Zone. The music flows without thought to get in the way, and it’s the most spiritual feeling I know. That’s why I keep doing this.