Tour life presents plenty of room for human connection and space for dreaming and experience, as well as experiencing each others ups and downs. The band is trekking into unknown territory with great vulnerability, not only on the stage sharing their deepest struggles, doubts, love, brokenness and experience, but also within the challenges of tour life.

Each day presents new challenges, whether it’d be the separation from your family, the never-present opportunity for time alone to recollect and rest, sleepless nights because of the high-energy of the stage, the social expression before and after, and the late nights that brings. Rest has to be found in spaces that weren’t designed for rest - the car, shoulder to shoulder with your band mates and tour members, with bumps in the road; four hours of sleep after long drives, immediate prep for the show, the performance, and then the challenge of still having energy to give to your new and old fans that are stoked to meet you. (Right now, many may be thinking - thank God for green rooms, but sometimes those don’t exists or are not the greatest - cue to venues for betterment and nods to those who do it well).

The question I asked while on tour was, “Why, with all the road-weariness, exhaustion, hard labor, emotional, mental, physical, social and spiritual giving, do people still do this and find value in it?”

The answer I found was all about this oneness of humanities searching for meaning and purpose. We find meaning in connectivity, we find purpose within sharing stories and joining in the emotional expression of that search through the swells and sounds of music and the lyrical expression of the songs; we find joy within the sharing of energy between the band, the audience and the sounds, and find new strength from the recognition that you are not alone in this, that you are worth our time, either as the band or those that partake in it’s creations, and that we are all on the same path searching for love, for truth, for meaning and human worth, whether we know it, will admit it, or not.

Tour life is exciting, and it’s challenging. But the joy that comes from each night, sharing your songs or partaking in their richness, feeling accomplishment, encouraged, validated, inspired, loved and befriended is refreshing, empowering, and life-altering.

Music does something to all of us. We may not be able understand all its mysteries and why it effects us so greatly, but we can just let it vibrate in and through us, and trek on, amazed by its complexities and mesmerized by its soul-attentive embrace.

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