Hello, I'll be heading down to St Louis from the burbs of Chicago to see the band play next Thursday.  Are there any other members of the board planning to see Tift in St Louis?

Rich

Sorry, I won't be at the St. Louis show, but here's an interview with Tift from one of the St. Louis newspapers:

Interview: Tift Merritt, Playing Thursday, September 11 at Blueberry Hill's Duck Room

Rich,

I won't be at the St. Louis show, either, its a long drive from Phoenix!  I did drive up there from Memphis to see Tift at the same venue in 2005 and it was a good time.  I think its a pretty decent room for music, so you should be in for a good experience from the venue side of things.  Look out for Beatle Bob, a trippy dude who sports a Beatles Moptop haircut and dances wildly to any kind of music.  He is a professional concert-goer, travels all over the country and to other countries, too, to see shows.  He's well known to many musicians.  I remember Caitlin Cary from Tres Chicas (who opened the show at Blueberry Hill in 2005) telling me about his infamy.  I think Beatle Bob lives in St. Louis.  He is a definite character, odd but lovable.

I liked that interview you found, Chris.  Seemed there was a little tension between Tift and the interviewer, but perhaps that resulted in some unusual information.  This part strikes me as revealing a little more about how the 2005 tour was difficult:

Tift: "...Being on tour can make a mess of your life."

But now you’re back on tour.
That’s going to be a perennial situation, at least if things go well. I’m getting better at being on tour.

It was really just the touring?
I…I wasn’t happy back then. Touring is the easiest scapegoat. Actually, I’m the scapegoat. When you travel like that you lose perspective. You spend a lot of time with strangers, not with your families and best friends. It’s hard.

I also enjoyed alot that radio interview from the Birmingham Alabama station.  I still get sad when I hear Tift say how difficult touring is and how she fears that it will mess up her songwriting.  That is a selfish sadness, certainly, because I love the performing part of her talent the most, but its not the part of her talent that she loves the most.   Its a bummer to think that in making her fans (at least me, I won't speak for everybody else) happy by performing she has to pay such a high price in being unhappy doing that. 

The nice thing in these interviews is that she is getting better at touring and it seems to be less unpleasant for her. I hope that she may continue to tour in the future as she  figures out a way to do it that doesn't have such a heavy negative impact on her life.  My hope is that touring would be enjoyable for her.   Then it would be a win-win, not a win-for-us, lose (or unpleasant chore)-for-her as it seemed to be in 2005, although I never would have guessed that from seeing the shows or chatting with her before or after.

Matthew, I hope Phillip responds to this thread. He would have a better handle on this issue than most. But I'll weigh in with my own interpretation of Tift's comments about the challenges of touring.

I don't think she's saying that she doesn't like touring, or that she considers it a burden. I get the sense that she enjoys performing but worries about enjoying it too much given her personality and preferences.

Some performers are total hams. They might hate the drudgery of the travel and loading and unloading equipment, but they live for the exhiliration of the performance on stage. They make albums primarily to help them continue attracting crowds to the performances. If they've reached a level of stardom at which adequate-sized crowds are guaranteed for their shows, then writing and recording become luxuries to be enjoyed when the urge strikes.

I get the impression that Tift is not that type of performer. We've seen her. We know she gives her all to her stage show. But I get the impression from some of her interviews that the atmosphere surrounding the stage doesn't appear as real to her as the process of writing. In other words, Tift the "rock star" doesn't feel as genuinely Tift as Tift the writer.

One suspects that a key set of questions running through her mind during the tough pre-Paris period was: Is this my life? Do I have to be Tift the performer to make it? Am I going to spend almost all of my time on the road? If so, is it worth it?

The fact that she has been back on the road almost non-stop since February suggests that she has accepted the "touring Tift" element of her life to at least some extent. One hopes that the soul-searching connected with AC has helped her develop an internal mechanism for gauging how much touring is enough without crossing the line.

I am, of course, guessing about all of this. That guess might be entirely full of crap. I can say to anyone reading this thread who's planning to go to tonight's show that she will undoubtedly leave everything she has on the stage floor to ensure you enjoy yourself. And she will be happy to do it.

I don't know Tift at all, I've only seen her once so all I can comment on is that she's a fantastic performer and from the looks of it she really does enjoy being on stage. So let's all savor these times in her career when after a show we can walk up to her and personally tell her how much we enjoyed it and have our picture taken with her. In the future that may all come to a screeching halt and we won't be able to get within 100 ft of her. These are the good old days!

Oh and Rich, have fun and looking forward to your report.

I think Tift may have really been ready to quit the music business at the end of the Tambourine tour. When she was in Louisville, I had a chance to have lunch with her and I was my nosey self. She talked some about the tour. One of the things I remember was that for some shows, few people were showing up. I think I remember her saying that they did one show and only 25 people were there.

That had to be incredibly discouraging. Her first album gets critical acclaim, her second gets a Grammy nomination, they're out on tour, and... 25 people show up. One minute, you're in Los Angeles for the Grammys, the next you've driven 4 hours to play before 25 people.

Thanks for your replies. I read about how frustrating the earlier tours had been with the lackluster turnout, it's such a shame for a band that's so talented with the best singer/songwriter of her generation.

I got to St Louis at around 11AM, I was in the Loop area at around 2pm. I spent time walking the strip and bumped into Jay and Scott at a record store just a few doors down. Nice guys, had some nice conversation. A few hours later I ate dinner at Blueberry Hill, because I had nothing better to do i just hung out. I happened to be looking at some pictures when I saw Jay, I realized I was in the loading in area. I had a chance to talk with Zeke and requested either Trouble Over Me or Write My Ticket. The nice thing is Jay, Scott, and well, the entire band remembered me even though I hadn't seen them since July, really nice folks. I also had a chance to talk with Tift before the gig.

Well the seating was GA, I was the first in line at 6pm, I know it's early but I drove 5 hours, I figure it was worth it. I met some nice folks in line as well. None from the boards from what I could tell, I did pitch the boards to them. They are long time fans as well. Anyway, I got a prime seat up at the stage right underneath Tift, dead center. It was awesome. Best seat for an artist that I admire I've ever had. I took a lot of pictures but without the flash, I'm a knucklehead when it comes to digital cameras so my pictures didn't turn out so great without the flash.

Anyway, I can't remember the entire setlist in it's entirety but I did some songs I hadn't seen the previous two times I had seen them this summer. Among them,  Keep You Happy, such a lovely song. I don't recall seeing the band perform that at the other two shows I attended. Tell Me Something True, I love her tambourine playing on the songm and Write My Ticket which they did play as a special request, Zeke and Tift were kind enough to play that for me. I was blessed. The other song I hadn't seen them play in my two previous shows on the tour I attended was When I Cross Over.

I wish I had thought to try to grab a copy of the setlist, oh well. I apologize. Phil, I'll send over some pictures.

Rich