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February 13, 1978 – Rockford, Illinois – Show #1
(“homecoming” night)
We are so far from Alabama the radio accents have changed.
Scarlett slept most of the bus ride, curled up like a cat with her boots on my duffel, while I stared out at all this flat, frozen space. Fields, low houses, the odd rusted barn. Illinois feels like somebody ironed Texas and forgot the mesas.
We checked into a motel that smells like cigarettes and Pine-Sol, tossed our bags, and walked to the venue with the sky already purple. Rockford. Their town. There was this weird charge in the line, like the whole city was showing off its favorite children.
Inside, once the lights died, Rick just *exploded* onto the stage in that checkerboard grin way he has, and they hit “Hello There” like a starter pistol. I swear my heart took off three beats ahead of the song. Then straight into “Come On, Come On,” and I knew every drum fill before it landed. I’ve worn the grooves out of the first LP and *In Color* back home; hearing those songs live felt like someone turned the record inside out and stood me in the middle of it. Their whole thing—Beatles sweetness welded to big, filthy guitar—makes so much sense up close. ([Setlist.fm][1])
I kept watching how they *arrange* momentum: short opener, no talking, then build, build, build. It’s like what Scarlett and I do when we put my quiet folk stuff first and then her noise pieces, only here it’s all in one band—hooks and squall and those sugar harmonies welded together.
Scar stood beside me, arms folded, dead calm on the surface. I thought she was bored until I noticed her right foot tapping in these tiny, perfect subdivisions.
“They’re tight,” she shouted in my ear between songs. “Drummer’s like a metronome with bad intentions.”
That’s Scarlett for “I’m impressed.”
They closed with “Goodnight” into “Clock Strikes Ten,” and it felt like the whole room was going to levitate. I walked back through the cold with my ears ringing and my brain busy, trying to figure out how to steal that feeling and smuggle it into what we do with the Magnetic Fields.
---
February 15, 1978 – Chicago, Illinois – Show #2
(Aragon Ballroom, or Heaven in an old theater)
Two days into this and my notebook already smells like beer and bus exhaust.
The Aragon looks like someone put a castle inside a movie theater—stars painted on the ceiling, fake balconies, all that. I love it. Feels properly dramatic for the noise they make.
Tonight they stretched the set a little. “Stiff Competition” and “On Top of the World” showed up—new songs they said were from the record they’re finishing. They feel rougher than the stuff on *In Color* but in a good way, like the band’s skeleton is pushing through the skin. “Need Your Love” in particular is ridiculous live: it starts all slow and pleading and then mutates into this huge, grinding thing that sounds like it could knock the plaster off the walls. ([Setlist.fm][1])
Scarlett leaned over during that one and yelled, “That’s how you do a long song. No self-indulgent solos. Just tension.”
It hit me that they’re doing what we talk about all the time: writing songs that are pop on paper but feel dangerous in person. There’s a kind of math to it—how often they let the bass walk, where the guitar chokes off, when Robin jumps to that high, strangled note and just hangs there.
We walked back through slushy streets after, both of us humming different bits. I realized the thing I like most about them is that they sound *funny* and *furious* at the same time. Like they know exactly how ridiculous rock and roll is and still treat it like a holy calling.
---
February 17, 1978 – Madison, Wisconsin – Show #3
(college town, snowbanks taller than me)
Wisconsin is cold in a way Alabama never warned me about. The wind off the lake feels personal.
The venue tonight was some university hall—not fancy, but the kind of room where the walls remember speeches and bad poetry. A lot of students in army jackets and big glasses, plus a surprising number of girls in homemade Cheap Trick shirts. I like seeing girls losing their minds over guitars. Makes me feel less like a stray.
They opened with “Hello There” again—of course they did—and by the time they landed in “Southern Girls” the whole front section was a single organism. It was the first time on this trip I really stood still and listened to the backing vocals instead of just screaming along. They’re clever with them, stacking little thirds and fifths in places you’d expect just noise. It’s like watching someone build a house of cards in a wind tunnel. ([Setlist.fm][1])
Scarlett pointed out how often they *don’t* solo. “Just that short, rude guitar break and back to the chorus,” she said. “That’s discipline.”
On the way back to the motel, she added, “I still like your songs better.”
I told her that’s because she’s biased. She shrugged and said, “Yeah. Obviously.”
---
February 18, 1978 – Milwaukee, Wisconsin – Show #4
(bigger room, same band, somehow louder)
We’re learning the rhythm of this now: wake up, find coffee, scribble in the notebook, figure out what highway or bus gets us to the next place, arrive just in time to feel like we might miss the show, barely don’t.
The Milwaukee venue was bigger—more proper rock show than college thing. Lot of denim. More smoke. My voice is shredded but I keep singing anyway, like I’m trying to match whatever Robin’s doing at the edge of his range.
They did “California Man” tonight, that Move cover, and it felt like they turned the entire room into one big stomp. I watched from the balcony for a couple songs just to see the pattern in the bodies below—wave after wave of jumping when Rick throws his arm up, like he’s conducting a stampede. ([Setlist.fm][1])
Scarlett, from beside me: “You could do that.”
“Jump off a monitor and lead a stampede?”
“Conduct a room,” she said. “You already do. You just don’t climb on things yet.”
I laughed, but something about that lodged under my ribs. I’ve always thought of myself as the girl with an acoustic and angry lyrics, not a ringleader. But watching them, I kind of want both.
---
February 21, 1978 – Peoria, Illinois – Show #5
(small-town holy night)
This one felt like a secret.
Smaller city, smaller venue, low ceiling. The kind of room where if the PA coughs, everyone hears it. A boy in front of us had a hand-drawn Cheap Trick logo on his jacket in ballpoint pen, and I almost cried over how earnest it was.
Because the stage was so low, you could see everything—the way Bun shifts his shoulders right before he hits a fill, the curve of Tom’s mouth when he leans into a harmony. They ran a shorter set—no “Auf Wiedersehen” tonight—but they dropped “I Want You to Want Me” right in the middle and the room went ballistic. It’s such a simple song—two chords and a plea—but they play it like it’s a joke and a confession at the same time, and somehow that makes it land harder. ([Setlist.fm][1])
After, out in the cold, Scarlett said, “You like them because they sound like they’re in on the same secret as you.”
“What secret?”
“That everything’s absurd and you still have to mean it.”
Sometimes I forget she’s as young as I am.
---
February 23, 1978 – Champaign, Illinois – Show #6
(college kids, fluorescent hallway, temporary church)
The show was at another university hall, this one with those ugly fluorescent backstage corridors I’ve begun to recognize from our own gigging. There’s a smell every backstage has: dust, old coffee, fear, and hairspray.
We didn’t meet them (not properly), but we *did* end up in the same hallway as Tom on the way out. My brain shut down to a single thought: bassbassbassbass. Scarlett, of course, stayed composed—just gave this small nod, like a fellow craftsperson seeing another on shift. He nodded back. That was it. Two seconds, maybe.
Onstage they were looser than the last few nights. Lots of between-song wisecracks, including a whole bit about midwestern winters and the audience owing them hot chocolate. The crowd gave as good as they got. At one point a guy yelled, “Play ‘Surrender’ again!” and Robin said, “We will if you pass your exams.”
They’re road-testing that song hard. Every night it feels a little sharper, like watching steel get honed. It starts off sounding like a regular rock tune and then takes this left turn into something that feels like a prayer for kids like us—raised on our parents’ records, trying to figure out who we’re supposed to be in the mess of it. I can hear why they’re building their next record around this material. ([Setlist.fm][1])
I took notes on how they changed the dynamics—quiet bridge, then everything slams back in. Going to steal that, too.
---
February 25, 1978 – Chicago, Illinois – Show #7
(second Chicago, same city, different storm)
Back in Chicago, different venue, different vibe. The room felt rowdier this time—more beer, more shouting, more people who looked like they’d been following the band longer than I’ve been allowed to stay out past ten.
They rearranged the set. “I Want You to Want Me” came earlier, and “Need Your Love” took the late slot, stretching out and snarling. They pulled “Auf Wiedersehen” back in for the closer, and it was like someone detonated a mood bomb—everyone yelling along to a song that is basically a mean goodbye dressed in glitter. ([Setlist.fm][1])
Scarlett said afterward that what she loves is how noisy they get without losing the melody. “They flirt with chaos but never marry it,” she said. Which, coming from a girl who worships at the altar of feedback, is high praise.
On the ride back we traded fantasies: what if *we* had a van, what if we put out a record people cared about this much, what if we drove it across the entire country, all of it. Alabama feels small from up here. Not bad-small. Seed-small.
---
February 26, 1978 – Rockford, Illinois – Show #8
(second Rockford – hometown mania)
If the first Rockford show felt like a homecoming, this one felt like a family reunion where everyone pre-gamed.
The crowd knew every in-joke, every riff before it came. You could feel the pride—this sense of, *these are ours*. It made me wonder how Huntsville would look at Scarlett and me if we ever got big enough to come back in a van instead of on a Greyhound. (Assuming Huntsville ever decides we count as theirs, which is its own question.)
Tonight I watched almost exclusively from Scarlett’s point of view—eyes on Tom, on how the bass locks with the drums. She nudged me during “Big Eyes” and whispered, “Listen: that’s the engine. Everything else rides on it.”
We shared a hot chocolate after the show (real, mercy-on-our-souls hot chocolate) and she said, “This is good for you, you know.”
“Burning my throat out?”
“Seeing somebody *else’s* band be the best thing in your life for a month,” she said. “So when our band’s the best thing, you remember how it felt from the other side.”
---
March 1, 1978 – Milwaukee, Wisconsin – Show #9
(beginning of the March run)
We took a couple of quiet days—laundromat, cheap diner meals, actual homework (remember homework?)—and then the March run started.
Back in Milwaukee, different hall this time. You can tell the new songs are solidifying. “On Top of the World” used to feel a bit wobbly live; now it lands like a statement. Robin introduced a few songs as “from the next album” and I caught myself thinking of it like a weather pattern we’re standing just ahead of—something that will hit everyone else later, but we’re feeling the first winds.
They opened with “Hello There” again—some things are carved into stone—and then barreled straight through that average setlist I could probably recite in my sleep now: “Come On, Come On,” “Stiff Competition,” “Big Eyes,” “Southern Girls,” “Need Your Love,” “I Want You to Want Me,” “California Man,” “Surrender,” “Goodnight,” “Clock Strikes Ten,” “Auf Wiedersehen.” I wrote it down like a formula. ([Setlist.fm][1])
Scarlett said, “You know, we might want to stop pretending we’re too cool for setlists. This is kind of… science.”
Then she stole my pen and started sketching out possible Magnetic Fields song orders in the margin, her handwriting tiny and precise.
---
March 3, 1978 – Madison, Wisconsin – Show #10
(we are regulars now)
Back to Madison, back to the student crowd, back to the same chilly wind off the water. It already feels familiar. That’s the strange part—how quickly a place can become part of your inner map.
They were tired tonight; you could see it in the circles under Robin’s eyes, the slightly slower banter. But the playing never sagged. That’s something I’m trying to learn: you can be exhausted and still bring the fire when the red light (or in this case, the stage lights) is on.
During “Surrender,” I watched a girl near the front—maybe fourteen, maybe fifteen, braces flashing when she yelled. She knew every word. Her dad was beside her, in a faded Led Zeppelin shirt, also singing but quieter. I thought about Lucille, who would absolutely come to our shows even if she hated every note, just on principle; about Phoebe, who’d stand at the back and clap on the off-beat just to make us laugh.
This music is loud and silly and brilliant, but it’s also a bridge. Between generations, between suburbs and cities, between shy girls in denim jackets and whoever they’re going to be. That’s the part that keeps choking me up.
---
March 5, 1978 – Green Bay, Wisconsin – Show #11
(frozen harbor, hot room)
Green Bay felt smaller, quieter, more spread out. The venue was a hockey arena repurposed for rock and roll, curtain draped to make it less cavernous. Sound bounced everywhere, which made the drums sound like artillery.
The set itself was fairly standard, but something about “Need Your Love” tonight hit different. They stretched the middle section, letting it hang on a single chord longer than usual, bass and drums pounding one steady heartbeat while Rick painted noise on top. It was the closest they’ve come to the sort of controlled chaos Scarlett worships. She stood absolutely still, eyes closed, counting. I know her well enough to know she was mapping out the exact moment things almost fell apart and how they pulled it back.
Afterward she said, “That’s the good stuff. Right on the cliff edge.”
Me: “You mean like us running around the Midwest on our own?”
Her: “That too,” and she actually smiled.
---
March 9, 1978 – La Crosse, Wisconsin – Show #12
(road fatigue, river town)
I woke up this morning and had to stare at the ceiling for a full minute to remember which town this was.
La Crosse is all hills and a river and the smell of paper mills. The venue was older, the kind of place where you can feel every spilled beer from the past twenty years in the floorboards.
I was more tired tonight than any of the previous shows, and that made me notice different things. The way Rick uses silence—little choked-off mutes between bursts, which make the loud parts louder. The way Robin plays to the *back* of the room, not just the kids pressed to the stage. The way Tom never, ever looks bored even on the hundredth repetition of a bass line. ([Rolling Stone][2])
Scarlett was quieter than usual on the walk back. Finally she said, “You’re going to do this someday. For real. Not just chasing someone else’s tour.”
“And you?”
“I’ll be there,” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Someone has to keep you from falling off the monitors.”
---
March 11, 1978 – Appleton, Wisconsin – Show #13
(gym floor revival)
High-school gym turned venue. Fluorescent lights overhead until showtime, basketball hoops cranked up toward the ceiling, bleachers pushed back. It should’ve felt awful. Instead it felt like some weird rock-and-roll church.
The crowd skewed younger. Plenty of kids my age or younger, lots of nervous energy. You could tell some of them had never been this close to a loud band before. First chord hit and half the room jumped like someone had fired a starting pistol.
They played a slightly shorter set, maybe because of curfew. “Hello There,” “Come On, Come On,” “Big Eyes,” “Southern Girls,” “I Want You to Want Me,” “Surrender,” “Goodnight,” “Clock Strikes Ten.” The essentials. ([Setlist.fm][1])
There was a moment during “Surrender” where Robin held the last note of the chorus a hair longer than usual, and the entire room tried to match him. This wobbly, imperfect human choir in a gym that still smelled faintly of floor polish. I felt something in my chest click into place—like, oh. *This* is why people chase this life. Not for the hotels (ours are terrible), not for the food (worse), but for that one second where the whole room breathes the same breath.
Scarlett, afterward: “We’re stealing the choir thing.”
Agreed.
---
March 13, 1978 – Rockford, Illinois – Show #14
(last Rockford, last Monday on the road)
Back where we started.
This Rockford show felt gentler in a strange way. Maybe it’s me; maybe it’s the exhaustion; maybe it’s the city knowing the band is about to go bigger and trying to hold them a little closer. There were more parents in the crowd this time, more people who looked like co-workers and cousins.
They played almost the full “average” setlist I’ve memorized, plus a deep cut I didn’t recognize that might have been an old Fuse song or something they’re testing. The band looked comfortable, like the stage was truly home. ([Setlist.fm][1])
After the show, we stood across the street just watching the load-out. Road cases, tangled cables, a whole life broken down into rectangles and stacked into a truck. I’ve seen it from the other side with our tiny version—borrowed amps, borrowed cars—but this was the big-kid version.
“Do you miss home?” Scarlett asked.
I thought of Huntsville, of Lucille’s cooking, of Phoebe’s voice on the phone, of the church parking lot where I first learned to steer. Of Alabama heat instead of this bone-deep cold.
“Yeah,” I said. “But I think I might miss *this* more when we go back.”
She nodded like she understood exactly. I know she did.
---
March 15, 1978 – Chicago, Illinois – Show #15
(last night, for now)
Last show. For now, anyway. We head south tomorrow, back to the grind.
Chicago again, different venue again, one more crack at this feeling. My throat is shredded beyond recognition, my ears ring constantly, my knees hurt from too much standing on hard floors. I’ve never felt more alive.
The band came out like they were starting a race, not ending a tour leg. “Hello There,” of course—some rituals you don’t break—and then a set that felt less like a list of songs and more like a single long gesture. They tucked “Need Your Love” and “Surrender” back-to-back near the end, and it was almost too much. Desire and surrender, back-to-back like that; it felt like someone had mapped nineteen different teenagers’ hearts onto one sequence.
During the last chorus of “Clock Strikes Ten,” I didn’t sing. I just listened. To them, to the crowd, to the way sound poured through this room and out into the Chicago night like it was trying to find every alley. ([Setlist.fm][1])
Scarlett nudged me and pointed at my notebook, still in my hand. “You gonna remember all this?”
“I’m writing it down,” I said.
“That’s not what I asked.”
I thought about it. The bus rides, the snow, the cheap motel blankets, the flash of lights on guitar chrome, the feeling of being one human in a sea of them, all of us yelling the same syllables at the same time. The way seeing someone else’s band be *that* good makes me want to work harder, not give up.
“Yeah,” I said. “I think it’s welded on.”
We walked back through the city, two fifteen-year-old girls temporarily decamped from Alabama, pockets almost empty, heads full. There’s a whole life waiting for us back home—school, our own band, fights with Bennett, protest meetings, whatever shape the future takes—but this month on the road feels like a spine I can build the rest around.
If I ever forget how it felt to be on the *fan* side of the stage when everything catches fire, I hope somebody shakes this notebook in my face and makes me read it again.
