If you're a habitual concertgoer, chances are you've uttered some variation of the following statement to a friend regarding a fast-approaching show:
"I really don't care if we don't get there early/stay until the end, because the opening band/headlining band makes me want to skewer my own eyes with plastic cocktail swords, pack my ears with burning scabs, and run flaming into the street, where I'll thankfully be run over rather than having to continue living with the knowledge that the opening band/headlining band exists."
Or something like that.
The point is, a lot of the time, great bands tour with spectacularly bad ones, or worse, wholly bland ones. Sometimes, your favorite little group gets an opportunity to open for a horrible but vastly more popular act, like, say, Fall Out Boy. Sometimes, your favorite successful group takes a horrible but up-and-coming act (like, say, Fall Out Boy circa '03) on the road in an effort to appear edgy or appeal to a younger, trendier crowd. Occasionally, your favorite group is simply possessed of incredibly bad musical taste, despite its own talent. But usually it's all about wider exposure, and either a conscious compromise on the part of the artist, or a canny move on the part of the artist's management, booking agent or label.
And then there are the folks who've been down that road, weighed the results, and decided that, fuck it, they just want to tour with bands they respect, regardless of popularity or style.
"There's nothing worse than going on tour with a band that you don't like, 'cause you gotta listen to them play for two months, every night," says Ben Nichols, singer/guitarist for impeccably gritty Memphis twang-rock outfit Lucero. "It's much better if you like what they're doing. So we've gotten more adamant lately about touring with who we want to, bands that we like."
More careerist musicians might consider that mindset a handicap, but Nichols and his bandmates certainly haven't suffered, as local Lucero fans can attest. Around here, the outfit has in a couple of years gone from playing for a handful of mostly punk and alt-country fans to selling clubs out, and Nichols says Lucero's obvious recent rise in popularity isn't just a Southeastern phenomenon.
"The Southeast is especially good, and really, Florida has been especially good to us," he says. "But there's been noticeable growth all across the board. New York's gotten better, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco … we've always done well in Louisville, Denver, Richmond. But it's nice to actually be able to tell the difference, and have people show up at your shows. It makes being on the road much easier."
Lucero is currently on a co-headlining jaunt with Indiana's equally original and worthwhile Murder by Death. While MbD's literary, cello-anchored cabaret-of-the-damned style might at first seem miles removed from Lucero's twanging, whiskey-fueled rock 'n' roll, Nichols detects "a certain intensity" in common. And like Lucero, MbD has found both freedom and fans by worrying less about sonic similarity than just getting out there and enjoying the trip.
"We've been on every kind of tour imaginable," says MbD frontman Adam Turla with a laugh. "Being a band from Indiana and trying to get started, we took every tour we could get. We've been lucky enough to go over with indie audiences, acoustic audiences, metal audiences. Whatever it is, there's been a group of people that have responded well. It's been pretty fun, and I think it's been an advantage in the end."
Turla credits the average show patron — and particularly the younger ones, at whom inferior cookie-cutter music is aimed in a ceaseless barrage — with more open-mindedness than most. It's an attitude that's won Murder by Death loyal longtime fans among those who first see the band while waiting to see a radically different (read: trendier) act headline.
"When they come to see us three or four years later, you don't ever see the T-shirts of the bands they might have seen us on tour with [before]," he says. "They've gotten into other bands, and their tastes have developed as they've gotten older. And that's very positive, because they're the future of music. If you can convince them to listen to music that you think is good, they'll always be fans."
These are two killer acts for whom a more discerning and personally satisfying tack in choosing tours has paid off — perhaps not in regular FM rotation or arena slots, but in acceptance by an eclectic crowd of fans whose music collection isn't comprised of a bunch of bands that sound like their favorite band. The mindset also results in fun for the musicians themselves, as well; the members of Lucero and Murder by Death have formed close friendships over past tours together.
"We're both pretty hard-drinking bands," Lucero's Nichols allows. "Actually, one of the nights that's the most infamous to us was in Boston with them. I ended up — let's see, I puked on stage, got shut down, got cut off, smashed my guitar and got kicked out of the club I just played. That was all with Murder by Death."
Turla adds: "We're old friends, so we're really excited to be going back out with them. We've had a few nights, so yeah, we'll see what happens. I think it's gonna be pretty wild."
This article appears in Jun 14-20, 2006.
