Spring 2024 U.S. Tour – Emo Orchestra with Escape the Fate

When I was a teenager in the late 00’s the Emo aesthetic was all the rage. I didn’t listen to the music, or directly associate with the culture – but I was still influenced, embodying “the look” with darkly dyed & straightened hair. Fast forward all the way to the fall of 2023, and I was working as a violist in the inaugural Emo Orchestra tour. I spent seven weeks performing all over the United States with 11 other orchestra musicians and the band Hawthorne Heights (known for their iconic hit Ohio is for Lovers). The general concept of Emo Orchestra was for the band to perform their own music + emo covers, with the orchestra as backup. Five months after the first tour ended I hit the road for my second tour, this time with the band Escape the Fate.

In many ways my start with the Emo Orchestra was a saving grace. If you’ve read my blog you know I’ve spent the pandemic years whittling away my bank account backpacking around the world and using my standby flight perks. By the summer of 2023 I was nearly broke, and out of desperation I almost veered into non-musical work. Then, when the emo orchestra gig came up I couldn’t believe the timing. The gig sounded fake, but that’s perhaps only because there was nothing else like it. As the tour began I learned playing a rock show was well out of my comfort zone, and performing the same show for weeks was uniquely challenging – but I embraced the experience as best I could. In the classical music world things usually revolve around how “refined” our sound can be, but with the Emo Orchestra it became more-so how visually free & entertaining we could be.

Our mode of transport was via tour bus. For our second tour we had one bus for the orchestra, a second bus for the band, and a smaller bandwagon for the crew. I learned from my first tour that the bus is your sanctuary, a space to decompress from the high energy of the performances and the constant movement from city to city. Other than your tour-mates, the bus is your only constant on the road. The buses each have a small kitchenette, front & back lounges (with TV’s), a tiny bathroom, and a bunk section stacked three high. I was always one of, if not the first one awake each morning to catch the drive into whichever city we were arriving – towards the end of tour there were some wonderful moments with coffee and views of the American west to enjoy.

As for our schedule, this spring we had 30 shows in 39 days, with two days of rehearsal and seven days off. The off days off were almost always on the outskirts of a city – places characterized by largely un-walkable blocks of fast food restaurants, car dealerships, and malls. In the photo below I found it interesting how the American flag was literally as big as the Cadillac dealership underneath! (you only realize how strange this is when you leave the U.S.). Spending so many days amidst these most-Americanized of spaces deepened my disdain for this country’s overbearing car-culture and lack of urbanization. Luckily our performance venues were almost always within walkable, inner city locations.

During my first tour with Emo Orchestra I used our daily per-diem payments (which are in addition to the salary) to dine out with my tour-mates and enjoy excursions in the cities we visited. This spring, however, I opted to save as much money as I could. I am currently saving to purchase a new viola, and I’ll probably end up traveling somewhere abroad this summer. I’m not gonna lie, being the one who didn’t spend money got exhausting after a while – it often limited the social scope of my tour experience.

In my attempts to be ultra-frugal I had to get creative – best evidenced by my use of a kettle to make hard boiled eggs on the bus. Each day the venues provided a “rider” of foods (usually consisting of veggies, hummus, granola bars, muffins, fresh fruit, deli meat, and bread). I always had a strange excitement collecting the remaining rider foods after shows to bring back onto the bus – it felt like stealing, but it wasn’t. By doing so we always had food on the bus, including an endless pit of granola bars. Generally I kept myself to a meal schedule of avocado toast for breakfast, rider foods for lunch, and a bowl of oatmeal with extensive fixings (i.e. chia seeds/walnuts) for dinner. My meals became known as “Brandin dinner” – healthy and somewhat minimal.

One of my more exciting moments on tour happened in Augusta, Georgia. I had never been here before — I enjoyed the scenic river-walk facing the border with South Carolina. Within the city sits a skyscraper called the Lamar Building – it was clearly abandoned given the graffiti visible on the peculiar glass penthouse at the top. One of my tour-mates discovered a broken-in entrance and climbed the stairs to the penthouse. This sounded adventurous and I needed an adrenaline rush, so I went in sometime afterwards. This was a thrill I won’t soon forget – about 15 floors from the bottom and on my way down I heard a door close somewhere on that floor … presumably someone lurking in the building. Needless to say I booked it the rest of the way out of there!

One of my favorite sections of this spring’s tour were the six days we spent in Florida. My Mom flew down from Wisconsin to stay with a former co-worker, and they came to our show in Clearwater. Then in Fort Lauderdale a friend drove across the state to visit and see the show – this was my first time wandering the “Venetian” waterways along Las Olas Isles street. Some of these homes (and their boats) rivaled what I saw living nearby in Miami years ago. For our Orlando show a famous tattoo artist came to do pre & post show tattoos backstage – the lead singer of Escape the Fate even had a tiny tattoo done mid-show!

For me, the most surprising stop this spring was San Antonio, Texas. It was incredibly hot and muggy, and upon first glance the streets didn’t appear to be anything special. That was until I descended to the famous river walk that squiggles through the city center. Here trees and surrounding towers provide shade and some minor relief from the heat. For me it was the perfect mix of urban development and nature — something about it felt like I was walking through Hanoi, or even Bangkok. There were touristy pockets with river boats and restaurants, and other quieter but no less beautiful sections. I left San Antonio wishing that more places in America could have something like.

My 31st birthday overlapped with our tour stop at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles. It was a great show to have a birthday – the Orpheum is located in downtown Los Angeles and is filled with photographs of all the famous musicians who’ve performed here over the years. And with industry professionals expected to attend, this performance was easily our most important of tour. I can’t say I’ve ever been sung Happy Birthday while on stage in a performance, let alone in such a historic theatre!

With my mind focused on audition prep and saving money I felt a bit like a recluse on this tour, but I still had an awesome time. I made many wonderful memories with my tour-mates to take along with me.

Next post: San Francisco & Brooklyn