That felt good.
Posted by Matt
Our little East Coast sweep. Sometimes it felt more like a family reunion than a bona fide tour, but it did a lot of the tasks that travelling should. We returned to Minneapolis happy, victorious and renewed. The concrete feeling of bandness more set and firm than before.
The excellent staff of one at the 939 Club in Boston made a great recording of our show there, an unexpected gift. And the following day, as we rode to New York, we did the thing I’ve almost never done, but which I always should have: we listened to the naked truth of the music we were making. And there was so much to learn, so much clutter to clear away, so much cloud to be condensed.
On the way home, we stumbled across a woman of astonishing rudeness, who said loudly into her phone while sitting directly next to us on the plane: “I’m sitting next to musicians. They must be like 50. Does the word delusional mean anything to you?” It hurts my hometown pride to note that the most unpleasant person we encountered was flying home to Minneapolis with us.
But the question she asked about delusion is a question I’ve been asking myself since I was 18. And it’s a question that disappears when you remove from the picture the overlay of business and reason. Why do birds sing? Why do old dogs bark? There’s just no reason for poetry and music, except that we just can’t stand to live without it.
After we got our luggage we exchanged hugs and were instantly cleansed by the unbelievable cold. Nice to have traveled and seen. Nice to be back home where we can write and create and respond to what we’ve learned.
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