Touring is very stressful, for musicians en crew alike. That was discussed this week again at the ILMC. Sleep deprivation and performance pressure are two obvious reasons for the stress. The show must go on, right?
Traveling itself can be pretty upsetting to. It all depends on how you feel about home, what you call home. In 2017, David Goodhart introduced the distinction between Anywheres and Somewheres.
Anywheres feel at home anywhere. They get their self esteem from achievements in education and work. They like social and geographical mobility. It’s easy for them to make new friends when moving to other places. “Home is where your heart is.” Touring is less stressful if you belong to the Anywheres. They often don’t understand that the situation is so different for Somewheres.
For Somewheres touring can be extremely stressful. Their identity is linked to belonging to a social group. They also put more value to the place they live in. The community with its rules and needs is important, often more important than the individual and its needs. When you tour, they miss the place of home and just as much the community around them. Anywheres are seen as very unreliable. You never know how long they will stay, what they will do next. “There’s no place like home.”
When feeling alienated while on tour, you can make come time to look for some nature, for a stroll in a park. It helps to feel connected to the place you call home. Keeping in touch with your loved ones at home is also important. Tell them about your experiences.
There are also ‘Inbetweeners’, who swing from one side to the other, depending on the issue. They can be very global thinking when it is about work, and very collective-thinking when it is about family, or the other way around. Often they are not aware of the switch.
Is there a way to make touring easier to everyone? I know both sides. I grew up in a small community of Somewhere. Having moved and become an Anywhere, the contact with family and former neighbors is not always easy. It often seems as if we speak different languages.
Understanding each others needs is key in the communication. At Bali they seem to have found a solution to it, by telling always where they come from and where they are going, as Elizabeth Gilbert describes so wonderful in her book Eat Pray Love. I see here the respect for both sides. Telling where you come from and where you are going is based on the need of Somewhere. It makes Anywheres more reliable to them.
Seems to me like a good way to handle the differences, while on tour or not.