Will the show go on?

My thoughts on the uncertain future of live music touring

April 2022 on the July Talk tour at the Jubilee Auditorium in Edmonton, photo by Lyle Bell

Last month, I made a couple tweets about the deluge of tour cancellations by well-known bands like Animal Collective and the increasingly uncertain future of music touring:

Cadence Weapon @cadenceweapon

Small to midsized “get in the van” music tours will become a thing of the past soon. The margins are thin, the travel is gruelling. Now we risk our lives every night with no additional health interventions being made by venues or promoters. Go see a live show while you still can

Sean Adams @seaninsound

Touring is broken It’s even harder for smaller artists Something needs to change, and fast https://t.co/oJaTI6fTh2

Cadence Weapon @cadenceweapon

Fans are more selective about what shows they go to. I was willing to risk my health to go see Pet Shop Boys. On the other side, artists are no longer willing to risk their mental, physical and financial well-being by participating in an increasingly unpredictable tour circuit

I was asked to expand on my thoughts for a piece in Toronto Life. You can read that here or by clicking the image below:

I’m seriously proud of this piece and hope that you’ll take the time to read it. It encapsulates almost two decades of experience as a live musician. Writing this article made me realize that certain things I had internalized as standard elements of being a musician, such as losing money on tour, are not very well-known outside of the music industry. It was important for me to be transparent about the financials involved. The “starving artist” cliché is pervasive but it doesn’t accurately capture the amount of maneuvering against razor-thin margins that is required by artists today.

I didn’t want to be all “woe is me” about it either. I didn’t write it because I want more for myself or to complain about how challenging it is. I wrote this piece for younger, less established musicians to use as a resource to share with their friends and families, those people in their lives who don’t have the faintest clue of what it means when they talk about how hard it is to go on tour.

In my role as Atkinson Artist, I want to shine a light on economic inequality in the music industry, a field of work that is in serious need of reform. Stay tuned for an upcoming initiative that I’m organizing that will hopefully alleviate some of the pressure on musicians across the country.

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• I’ll be taking part in Hayden’s annual Dream Serenade event at Massey Hall on November 12th alongside the Weather Station, Ron Sexsmith and more. You can learn more about Dream Serenade here and there’s a limited amount of tickets available here

• HAMILTON: I’ll be in conversation with Stuart Berman about Bedroom Rapper on Wednesday November 16th at Jordan’s Homeside Pub (1521 Main St E), courtesy of my local bookstore The City and the City Books. Hope to see y’all there!

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You can find me updating my playlist or hanging on TikTok, Twitter and Instagram. You can listen to Cadence Weapon music on Spotify, Apple Music and Bandcamp and you can cop Cadence Weapon merchandise here. Get your copy of Bedroom Rapper here and rate it on Goodreads