If you’ve yet to hear, Patrick, Garrett, and I managed to rope everyone who played on Showbread’s 2004 No Sir, Nihilism is Not Practical album into reuniting for one night to celebrate the record’s 10th birthday.
The show, as well as ticket sales, were announced this morning to a mixed reaction of excitement and outrage. While many are buying tickets from every nook and cranny of the US and beyond, others are upset we didn’t announce a full tour. Very upset.
So, let me try to tackle the most reoccurring queries that seem to be pouring in.
Why only one show? Why not a full tour?
Five out of the eight gentleman that have graciously agreed to be a part of this show have families, full-time jobs, and are years removed from a lifestyle of touring. Not to mention that they’re all scattered in different cities and states. They’re making sacrifices just to be at this show.
The current members of Showbread remain committed to Showbread, but our old friends have zero obligations to do anything at all, even one show. They’re being generous with us.
Moreover, even if this lineup did commit to a full tour, it wouldn’t be viable. We can speculate all day over whether or not there is enough demand to sustain a tour of this kind, but as the guy whose actually done the touring for the last decade, I’m in something of a position to hypothesize that—even if the former members didn’t have lives and obligations—we’d drag them all over the country just to, for the most part, go broke playing to tiny crowds. Showbread does not tour to get rich playing to sold out audiences (we’ve proven this over the last 16 years), but an undertaking of this magnitude would at least have to sustain itself, and truth be told, it probably wouldn’t.
It seems to me that some of those in the outraged camp don’t just want something closer to them, they want something nothing short of as close as humanly possible. I completely understand and sympathize with the fact that there are sincere folks who deeply wish they could come, but simply cannot make the timing, financial, or travel arrangements to pull it off. That said, we have folks flying from thousands of miles away and folks unwilling to drive a few hours who are treating us as though we’re the biggest jerks in the world.
I get being bummed, but the hostile, vitriolic outrage is a bit much. Even if we came to the East coast, it might still be too far, or on a day you can’t swing. That’s the nature of concerts. They are when they are. We aren’t trying to trick, disappoint, deceive, or screw over anyone who wanted to see this show and can’t. We’re doing the best we can with what we have.
It was this or nothing at all. We honest-to-God wish that everyone who wants to come could come—why wouldn’t we? But even if we did a complete tour, that still wouldn’t be the case. We love you and hope you’ll try and understand.
Is there any chance you’d do any more shows, even if it’s not a full tour?
There are absolutely no plans to do anything outside of this single show in terms of this lineup playing this record for this anniversary.
Why Portland?
All current members of Showbread live in Portland. It’s been years since we’ve had anything like a consistently “best” city for turnouts and fandom (as was once the case for places like, say, Sacramento, Houston, or Grand Rapids). Over the last few years, places fluctuate from tour to tour. In that vein, one place is as good as any and we live here.
Will you film the event or stream it live?
We are making plans to document the event. If we succeed in our plans, we don’t know what we’ll do with the footage just yet.
Is this single evening the only thing you have planned for the 10th anniversary of No Sir, Nihilism is Not Practical
This is the only thing we’re doing in terms of playing live with this lineup for the anniversary, but not the only thing we have planned to celebrate the anniversary.
