A Peek Behind the Scenes -- an Unexpected Gig with The Wood Brothers
(Peek behind the scenes with Suz's observations of our DC show at the 9:30 Club with The Wood Brothers)
It’s Tuesday night and the pizza dough is still rising when David walks in the front door and says our agent called their agent and we are on standby for the gig to replace Steve Poltz, who got Covid, as the opener for The Wood Brothers’ show in Washington DC tomorrow. The only prerequisites are a positive test from Steve and two negative tests from us. We wait for his positive test before we open our two precious tests. The phone dings. Agent says Steve’s positive! (Sorry Steve! We love you Steve! Glad you’re already feeling better, Steve…) But this means we’ve got the gig if we test negative! Packages are ripped open. Long Qtip is swabbed 10 times a nostril, never felt one side's snot in the other side of my nose until this chapter of life. Swirl in the tiny vial, squeeze the drops in the miniature indentation and then the wait – not unlike the pregnancy test wait – for the line to appear. 15 minutes later only one pink line appears, and voila! We got the gig! Celebratory cookies are baked. My dad is hired for the babysitting job. And too much excitement to sleep well – our first gig in over two months!
The next day we speed pack our suitcases after speed packing lunch boxes and dropping kids off at preschool. Don’t forget performance shoes, make up, fingernail clippers, ear plugs, the right underwear for our outfits, pills, water bottles, snacks, instruments, merch, mailing lists, cords, mics, bows, toiletries, warm winter gear, and of course adrenaline.
Van time alone with David is priceless. We’ve spent a huge portion of our waking hours together in a van. We fell in love in a van. We’ve slept in our van. I’ve breastfed children in our van, changed countless diapers in our van. Traversed the country numerous times. This time our conversations ramble from tonight’s set lists to dreams of when we’re 70 to stage banter we don’t want to forget, to our thoughts on Omicron to the Wood Brother’s success. We wonder if people will come tonight. In our familiar mobile office, we invite DC friends to come as our guests, confirm our homestay arrival time, fill up the gas tank, buy some snacks at Sheetz (bbq potato chips for me and white cheddar popcorn for David), and schedule a dentist appointment. I remark at the Five Guys we once stopped at, me pregnant, eating my own double cheeseburger and then, still hungry, eating David’s. The two and a half hour drive flies by.
Seeing the yellow bricks and blue doors of the 9:30 Club is a blast from the past. We’ve played there with the Carolina Chocolate Drops and Birds of Chicago, Guster, Joe Pug, and our own epic show where we convinced the whole crowd to sit down on the sticky floor while we serenaded them in the center of the room.
We unpack our merch and gear during The Wood Brothers’ sound check – always nice to hear bands we love going through the same challenging process of getting stage sound right – hearing all the things you need to hear to give a good show.
The venue has been renovated during Covid. The bathrooms are lovely and clean (a phrase I’ve never uttered before), and the green room is stocked with our rider items – nice cheeses, hummus, kombucha, an avocado, coconut water – the familiarity of these snacks feels welcoming. The faux leather couch, the small light bulbs encircling the mirror, the fatigue – it is all coming back to me. Changing into my yellow dress, shivering but knowing I’ll warm up in the lights as I always do. Adrenaline already flagging but needing to pump myself up again before I walk on stage. Peeking out to see if the room is filling up (it is) .
I lie on the couch for a few minutes before our set and wonder how we did this for years and years and with kids along too. Do I still like it? Stop this silly thinking, it’s 7:55. We walk downstairs, see a packed room, look at each other and smile. Walk on stage. A few people hoot and cheer to welcome us. Inside me, perfect calm. I look out at a thousand masked faces, the balconies full. My heart beats normally. No more adrenaline, just a foggy crowd, David beside me, and a song to sing. The set is wonderful - not too short, not too long. The crowd is with us. We are happy. At one point I think to myself – no more being in my head, just be here. See these people who came out tonight to be together under a large musical tent. Be in this song. The moment I totally relax I actually lose track of my body and somehow manage to bite my tongue, hard, tasting blood in my mouth for the rest of the song but not caring.
We thank the crowd. They are beautiful. They are quiet as I walk to the piano to sing one of my solo songs. I tell them how few songs are written about giving birth and about the expectations so many of us have around birth. I tell them this is a song about cesarean sections. Some people murmur as I begin. All of a sudden my heart is in my mouth, beating in double time. I am sweaty, shaking, totally adrenalized and alone on stage. My voice, which typically doesn’t have vibrato because I don’t know how to do vibrato, is vibrating as my pulse is rising. Barely in control, I finish the song, thank the audience again, and look up to see David rejoining me in the spotlight. My heart returns to its pace and we finish the set, me, totally calm again. Joyfully content in this familiar space.
What a ride! After the show we order Thai food from across the street and perch in our tiny green room to eat it. It’s too spicy, but it doesn’t really matter. Our bodies haven’t had a chance to become reacquainted with the strange eating cycles of the road (like eating sardines in the hotel bathroom at midnight). But we walk through the crowd and people use their hands and eyes and muffled masked voices to congratulate us and tell us how much they enjoyed our set. I thank them and look down as we slither our way to the back to watch the Wood Brothers.
They are marvelous. Doing this thing they’ve been doing for decades. The energy between the crowd and their 2,000 hands and 2,000 feet and these three musicians making the most incredible tapestry of rhythm and voices and melodies and unstoppable bass notes under a gorgeous light show – it’s electrifying. But for me it’s also lost its magic. Not in a sad way, but because we’ve seen behind the curtain, so to speak. We see it for what it is and the beauty of it is not as glamorous as it once was. For me, now, the beauty of the show isn’t the magic but the commitment. The years and years of small shows and shitty shows and cold and wet outdoor shows. Shows when you’re jetlagged. Shows when you’re sick. Shows when you’re depressed. Shows when someone important has just died – the unflagging energy of performers who bring it when they’re not feeling it. The power of watching an incredible band like The Wood Brothers is the way they’ve kept at it, reinventing themselves, being absolutely at the top of their game in terms of singing and writing and captivating their audience on stage. The beauty is in their willingness to let go of themselves in public, to become immersed and inhabited by the music that comes through them. It’s the devotion to this one form of art that is where the holiness lies.
After the show when the lights come on, the bouncers begin picking up plastic cups off the floor, the bins and cases are hauled out, the bartenders are chatting, the spell is over. It’s midnight and I’m just standing in a big room with lights and wires and black boxes that magnify sound. In the green room mirror I see my sweaty pits and smeared eyeliner that’s now only accentuating the bags under my eyes. I’m famished and fatigued and don’t really want to load the van in the 20-degrees, drive across town and unload instruments into another house and an unfamiliar bed and try to sleep. But of course I do. I have one of the strongest most devoted people I’ve ever encountered beside me. We load the van. We wave at the bouncers. We drive through blinking blue lights across DC. We unload the van. We sleep and we wake. We eat omelets and croissants with our hosts. We reload the van. We drive two and a half hours home. We pick up the kids from school, unpack the van, unpack suitcases, unpack lunchboxes and I begin to crash.
Lying on the couch I marvel at the last 24 hours. This is what we do. This is what we haven’t done much of in 2 years. This is what I want to do again. But also this: Our home is now a place of creativity and rest. I want to exist in this place too, not just in and out of the tour van like we’ve done since our 20s.. I want an ebb and flow, rather than one after another crazed year of touring. I want a balance of making records and touring with new records and resting between records. I want what these Covid years have allowed me to have, and for this I could not be more grateful.
photo by Jason Herman