These aren’t glamorous tours with big buses and trucks, stadiums and sponsorships. When the excess is unfunded and celebrity levelled, what’s left seems senselessly painful and intimate, like regular life, but different.

Generations of independent musicians—the out-of-sight and the unseen—have driven complex polygons of Europe in well-laden, worn-out vans, as though they have no choice. Their dreams, needs or contracts depend on it. When I’m not one of them, I’m their driver, merchandise seller, guitar tech and microphone checker, bank account, therapist and personal wake-up call. One thing leads to the next.

Road Worrier is an unlikely spotlight on the under-pressure, under-slept tour manager. Keeper of the most undefined, unregulated seat on the road. Here for your comfort and enjoyment, for lessons and laughs, to get you out of bed in the morning, get you to the show on time and get you out alive.