The Van Was Already Complaining Before We Hit the Freeway

By the time we left the second gas station, the sliding door had stopped locking and the aux cable only worked if you held it just so. We didn’t talk about it. Everyone was saving their words for the show, or at least pretending they were.

I wasn’t part of the band. Just along to “document the tour,” whatever that meant. Mostly I sat in the back with a half-working recorder, writing setlists in the margins of gas receipts and trying to stay out of the way.

Things Break on the Road. Sometimes That’s the Point.

By the third show, something was off. The drummer kept slipping out of the pocket. The crowd in Harrisburg barely moved — a few heads nodding, mostly out of politeness. The band didn’t say anything after load-out. Just passed around a bag of trail mix and stared at the floor.

That night, I noticed one of them had strapped a vibrating metronome to his ankle during soundcheck. Didn’t say anything. Just tapped a tempo in quietly while the rest of the room shouted over itself. Whatever helped, I figured.

Nothing Ever Sounds Like You Want It To

There’s this moment that happens, sometimes. Usually after a set where nothing clicks and someone’s bleeding from a knuckle and the amp smells like it’s going to catch fire. You hit play on the rough recording, half out of spite — and there it is.

A messy, snarling version of the thing you meant to play. Imperfect. Off-balance. Alive.

I caught one of those moments in a motel just outside Allentown. Room smelled like burnt coffee and old towels. We sat on the floor, listening back to a track that had nearly fallen apart halfway through. It was better than any of us remembered.

You Start to Vanish After a While

By the last show, nobody was talking much. Load-ins were quiet. The inside jokes stopped. Everyone smelled like clothes that had been dried in a cold car.

The show was in a community center next to a bait shop. During the set, a dog barked in the middle of a song and someone turned it into a vocal sample on the fly. It actually worked.

Afterward, someone played the night’s take through the van speakers. We all just listened. No one said it out loud, but we knew — that one was good.

Final Notes from the Passenger Seat

Touring doesn’t feel like what you think it will. It’s quieter. Weirder. More about managing tiny failures and finding a rhythm anyway.

Sometimes the only thing holding things together is tape, cheap gear, and a borrowed sense of purpose. But when it hits — even just once — it makes all the missed cues and lukewarm coffee and busted cables feel worth it.

Not important. Not profound. Just worth it.