You can read Chapter One of Sean Nelson’s farewell diary here, and Chapter Two here. Our story continues…

August 15. Chicago, IL. Schuba’s x 2.

“So, uh, like… what kind of band are you?”

This is always an uncomfortable question to answer, never more so than when you’re on a crowded shuttle bus between the extended parking lot and the airport. The businessman who asked had been eyeing our guitars and drum cases for the length of the shuttle ride and only worked up the nerve to ask when we were almost to the terminal.

“Well, rock and roll, I guess,” I said. A pretty useful all-purpose answer, given the context.

“A-ha,” he replied. “Like, what kind of… venues?”

“Clubs, small theaters.”

“Anything I would know of?”

Sean’s tour diary continues after the jump…

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You can read Chapter One of Sean Nelson’s farewell diary here. Our story continues…

August 8: Bell House, Brooklyn

You start in a van. If you’re lucky, you progress to a bus, and onward to multiple buses, trailers, semi-trucks. The goal of a touring band, presumably, is to be big enough that making a personal appearance requires a fleet of vehicles and a staff of dozens to make sure your sound is properly dialed in, your sets fully assembled, your spotlight correctly trained. But the real gold standard for band travel is by air. While the road crew is still tearing down the gear and humping it into the ground vehicles, the “talent” is already sleeping on Egyptian cotton sheets in the next town on the itinerary, having soared there immediately post-show, either privately or, if they insist, commercially.

I would like to tell you that is what our trip from Boston to Brooklyn was like. In fact it was like this: Finish show around 2 a.m. Hang out talking to people till 3:30 a.m. Load out and decamp to the very bizarre Days Hotel (not to be confused with the Days Inn, which is a little more deluxe than our budget allows) — whose lobby is bumping with drunken teenage Italian figure skaters (true) — at roughly 4:30. Attempt to decompress from post-show adrenaline until circa 6:30. Lobby call at 7 a.m. to fly to JFK. We flew because we got a deal on tickets and figured it would be worth it to save three or four hours of driving time in exchange for nap time before the show. This was not the Eagles on a Lear Jet. This was five exhausted Seattleites on a Jet Blue shuttle. Regardless of what it was, we were despairing of our decision not to just drive when we made it to New York nine hours later, just in time for sound check. I’ll spare you the details.

Sean’s tour diary continues after the jump…

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August 7: Boston

Boston is one of America’s most perplexing cities. You go in with visions of the Pixies and Throwing Muses and Steven Wright and you always wind up finding Aerosmith and, like, Boston. It’s easy to feel, as you walk the austere, history-paved streets, that every single man, woman, and child is just as likely to punch you in the throat as look at you. I went to a grocery store near the hotel and asked the clerk for a paper bag instead of a plastic one, and he looked at me like I had called his grandmother a lesbian ditchdigger.

And yet, for all its tough guy exterior, Boston has always been a bastion of success for Harvey Danger, issuing, like nearly all our success, from the fact that its radio stations were insanely supportive of our lone hit song 11 years ago. A devoted sub-sect of the millions of people who were (over)exposed to the song so long ago have remained interested in the band as years have sagged on, following our less-publicized work and developing that curiously ferocious brand of private loyalty that comes from being in on a secret. That’s my theory anyway. And it’s why we decided to play the first date on this mini-tour here.

(Speaking of which, you may be wondering: Who is this person writing about himself on this blog? Why should I care about his stupid band? Are they even still together? Who will replace Paula Abdul? All good questions. Just a brief factual aside: Harvey Danger formed in Seattle in1994, had a hit record with a hit song called “Flagpole Sitta” in 1998, and made two more albums, in 2000 and 2005, on major and indie labels, and are now doing a small run of farewell shows in August before disbanding.)

Sean’s tour diary continues after the jump…

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