The erudite and endearingly scabrous songwriter Jeffrey Lewis is a celebrated figure, but his public profile is such that opening slots are more common than top-billing. And it’s precisely this aspect of his career that Lewis addresses in “Support Tours”, examining the particular lack of agency and leverage of opening acts in American show-business. Lewis gets specific, beginning with a bassist scanning the web for tour announcements they could pounce on, followed by capitulation to a miserable nightly rate, and, in what could be a verbatim email recitation, booking agents’ many constricting stipulations. And eventually, Lewis foists the same sort of unfavorable terms upon another group asking to open for his act on tour. So it goes, Lewis shrugs, for a “working-class musician with no funding in my country.”
The candid song has a candid video, which shows many, many flyers featuring Lewis’ name dwarfed by the monikers of higher-profile acts. “Support Tours” is a track from Manhattan, an album-length meditation on Lewis’ home, which he’s currently supporting on tour.
November
18 Visilite Theater, Charlotte, NC
19 Saturn, Birmingham, AL
20 Exit/In, Nashville, TN
21 Juanita’s, Little Rock, AR
22 Vanguard, Tulsa, OK
23 San Loo, St. Louis, MO
24 Cat in the Cream Coffeehouse, Oberlin College, OH
