Tour has finally concluded. I feel as if I have lived three years in in the past two months, which is a feeling that can be hard to process. As I sit here at my folks house in Massachusetts, in the bedroom I grew up, I try to wrap my head around it all. For a long time now I’ve trekked through Europe alone with my guitar and most times it felt like some sort of pilgrimage, which was mainly due to the nature of this tour.
What I mean by ‘nature’ is that this tour did not bring me to fancy venues with green rooms, riders and buffets but rather bars, living rooms, pubs, and barns – where the people drink and laugh; where they live everyday. Now I’m not saying I wouldn’t take the former, because I most certainly would, but it would have given me a different set of experiences very different from the ones I lived, and it’s important that I recognize that. There was a certain quality of person that I consistently met along the way. The shows weren’t booked by a company or booking agent in an office somewhere but rather with people I had come into contact with, one way or another, through our mutual love of music. Individuals who I assure you were not making much, if any, money off the shows, but always made sure I was paid and taken care of. They are the people that enrich communities, they are the people that create communities. They are the ones who recognize the importance the arts play in our world, the ones who know of the fires they fuel and do their part to make sure the flames never go out. And I’ve learned that this quality of person always attract the same quality of person at the places where their gatherings occur. In these people – playing for them, meeting them, drinking with them, laughing with them – I am once again filled with inspiration and eager to write new music. At its conclusion, above all else, I have to pay mind to all of this with gratitude and appreciation.
