TOUR MEMORIES with Manchester Orchestra’s Robert McDowell

With their sixth album The Million Masks of God heralding the return of Manchester Orchestra, fans now anticipate their next opportunity to see the beloved U.S. band present the long-anticipated record live.

But, you know, we still gotta deal with this pesky pandemic. And while music events are restarting around the world, slowly but surely, we’re still a ways off from seeing bands like Manchester Orchestra touring on a global scale.

For guitarist Robert McDowell, the yearning for live performance is real. Below, he shares some memories from tours gone by, and tells us about the venues and locations he can’t wait to get back to.

The Fox Theatre, Atlanta

We have done a festival for eleven years, I think it’s eleven years now, in Atlanta called The Stuffing. It started off at Centre Stage and it’s moved to The Tabernacle. We did two years at The Fox Theatre and then we missed the last year because of the pandemic. For me, the Fox Theatre was a room that I grew up seeing The Nutcracker in, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra…I got Pinkerton taken away from me for trying to listen to it during The Nutcracker! 

It’s the historic room in our hometown. We looked into trying to do a limited capacity gig or a livestreamed thing, but we were unable to. Our hope is that we can, this November, do a version of The Stuffing there, as long as it’s safe for everyone. That venue, to me, just represents a full circle gratitude of “Man I hated this room for the wrong reasons,” I loved seeing My Morning Jacket there, Bob Dylan played there, I saw all these great acts there…to be able to be on that stage and have my family there, is a very, very special moment. 

I would say that was my biggest miss of 2020, that we weren’t able to do a third year there.

Stubb’s, Austin

I would love to return to Stubb’s in Austin, Texas. I remember the first time we played there in March of 2006, my dad flew down…for the rest of the family it didn’t mean anything, but to music lovers, that venue is a special place. We’d opened up there God knows how many times and then once we finally got to a place where we could finally headline it, it was such an experience. 

We don’t really eat past 4pm because we have nerves and we don’t wanna be sluggish on stage, but it’s a great venue in that the food isn’t pizza or something waiting backstage – it’s BBQ. 

Shepherd’s Bush, London

There’s a venue in London called Shepherd’s Bush, that we’ve played twice now. Even in the dressing rooms, the history of it…it’s where the Rolling Stones rehearsed for all of these epic things, it has the history of the bombings that went on around it. 

The sound and the way it’s tiered, the interaction with the crowd in the room…I had one of my favourite live moments ever there. We were playing ‘Dear’, the opening track off Simple Math, and there’s a line that says, “Dear everybody who has ever paid to see my band,” and the cheer that we got made five grown men cry on stage. It’s not a cool look, but it’s still burnt into my brain. Those are the moments that I will remember and hopefully tell my grandkids about. It’s a very humbling and special room.

Australia, the whole country!

The first time we ever came over to Australia, I remember it was Laneway Festival 2007. It started in Adelaide and I remember landing there, jetlagged and a child, basically. Walking up to this festival…I didn’t know what a laneway was, it’s not a term we use in the States. Trying to get into the festival that we were supposed to play and couldn’t really, we finally just talked to enough people and started to walk in. 

It was Clap Your Hands Say Yeah playing, Broken Social Scene, Feist…just the energy that the Australian music scene has, specifically with festivals, some of my greatest festival memories are in Australia. I miss that aspect of going to a place that’s similar enough but also different, and also on the other side of the world! You get to share moments with people through energy and music; you may not see them again, but you always uniquely have that moment together.

For me, it was my first time in Australia, so at the time I knew of Sydney – I didn’t know of the booming music scene in Melbourne, I didn’t know of all the different dynamics of Australia. Adelaide was such a warm and welcoming introduction to the country.

It’s fucking bonkers! I loved it. I had such a fun time. It was a wild festival too because bands like Broken Social Scene, Feist, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, those bands were stars, they were so well established and we were so little. In the States or in Canada, it would have been a different scenario but because we were all in Australia together, it was like we were all one big family. It was like a wonderful summer camp. 

The Million Masks of God is out now.

LISTEN/BUY

PRAISE FOR MANCHESTER ORCHESTRA

“Manchester Orchestra forge a newly lush, cinematic sound, unraveling detailed tales of characters with abstractly personal references.” 
Altpress

“A Black Mile To The Surface feels richly nuanced, offering up something new on every repeat listen.” 
The Line Of Best Fit

“By consciously interrogating everything they do, they’ve created something that doesn’t need a condescending suffix to justify its existence. It’s a new high-water mark for the band, and one well worth the pain to reach.”
 Drowned In Sound

The Million Masks of God is out now via Loma Vista Recordings
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